DESERT CULTURE

Hokitika Guardian, 12 April 1926, Page 4

DESERT CULTURE

R.KKTNG, Jan. 1. Dr X. C. Nelson. Curator of Areliaelogy of the An/e.rieau Museum oT 'Natural History, who has been attached to the Third Asiatic Expedition into Mongolia and lias recently returned to Peking, states that traces of five successivo culture stages were found In the reconnaissance work in which he has been engaged with the expedition. In the Gobi Desert traces were discovered of a Mongol culture that still survived 1.5000 vflnrs ago or more. This shows that the. Mongols always lived the same life as they do to-day. The earlier Mongol period, or the Iron Age. was characterised by the mounds and enclosures of heaped-up chipped stone implements—hammer stones which were old graves. This Proto-Mongol ago was not developed in the Gobi Desert hut came from the other side of the Altai Mountains in thei Upper Yenisei Country, which had. in tile first millennium, 8.C.. developed a vigorous civilisation. There is a. big break between the Proto-Mongol culture and the other cultures, as they cannot date hack farther Ilian 2,000 years, though the remains give indications of being very old. STONE AXES. Dr. Nelson discovered in a mound a complete skeleton of one of the early Mongol warriors, and alongside were his implements of warfare and his saddle. A quiwer of arrows had iron heads. This discovery established the mounds las belonging to a period dating liefore the present inhabitants. The expedition found the implements and tools characteristic of the Neolithic culture. There were many stones and .axes, grinding stones and mortars, spear an darrow points, and drills and fragments of pottery decorated in geometric designs stamped or incised into clay. It was the belief of Dr Nelson that the sand dunes of the region in which they found these remains bore some direct relation to the glacial period. As the result of the increasing warmth

the glaciers melted and lakes were formed. These primitive people lived along the lake shores, but the lakes dried up owing to the retreat of the feeding snows of the glaciers. As the lake fronts retreated the people followed so as to keep near the water, and left b tnilicd pinmmeibfi water, and left behind them the remains of their dwellings, workshops, and tools. These were in turn covered up by the advance of the sand dunes, which had their origin in the old dried-up lake bods. Sometimes these dimes buried the old shore tom. depth of 2d feet or more. Dr Nelson stated. Then came a time when there was no more sand and the wind, which generally blows strongest from the west began to carry away the sand. DINOSAUR EGGSHELLS. l)r Nelson pointed out that the Assilian culture is distinguished by small finely worked implements. These people were expert in the art of working Hint, making their instruments very small and delicate. They left many of these small implements behind them knives. scrapers. hammerstones, engraving tools, drills, and beads made of shells with a hole drilloil in the centre and sometimes decorated in geometrical designs. These heads were inside from the egg-shells of the st ruth ioi iter,—large ostrich-like birds- and the fragments of the fossiloil egg-shells of the dinosaurs, whose remains the paleontologists of Hie expedition found also in this vicinity. These Aziliaii people must have worked in wood, stone, and hone with these tools. Dr Nelson sir.led.