Under the direction of Roy Chapman Andrews, the American Museum of Natural History in New York conducted field expeditions in Mongolia during the 1920s investigating prehistoric remains. The material remains unpublished.
In Western Mongolia in the Altai Mountains, burial mounds and other monuments relate to cultures from the Bronze Age through the Turkic period. The eastern border of the Altai Mountains along the Great Lakes Depression marks the western boundary of the seventh to third century BCE Slab Grave Culture, identified by vertical flat stone slabs that mark each grave. Burial rituals for the Slab Grave Culture were uniform with the dead placed supine in ground pits or in stone boxes. Although generally robbed, they occasionally contain tripod vessels, bronze knives, celts, and arrowheads. Personal adornment includes stone beads; bronze bosses were sewn on clothing. A grave in the Gobi yielded massive gold Siberian-type fibulae embellished with mountain goat heads and turquoise insets. In Uvs aimag, near the town of Ulaangom, Mongolian archaeologists excavated a Saka site in the 1970s. Animal-style carvings are noted nearby in the Chandamane Mountain as well as on rock outcropping throughout the Altai Mountains in the steppes.
Since Mongolia’s return to autonomy following the breakup of the USSR, the country has attracted a plethora of international archaeologists (in 2002 over 100 international and Mongolian specialists participated). Also in 2002 the Mongolian government officially inaugurated the Institute of Archaeology which consists of the following research organizations: Palaeolithic Period, Bronze Age, Iron Age, and a research section of Ancient States period, a research team of the Mongolian Middle Ages period, an archaeological and anthropological laboratory, and a library and manuscripts fond. About 30 monographs and 600 scientific articles have been published with some having been presented at regional conferences. Currently the Institute of Archaeology houses over 5000 artifacts in its research laboratory, which is open to Mongolian and foreign students and scholars. Artifacts such as Palaeolithic stone tools from ‘Tsagaan agui’ (750 000 BP), funerary furniture from the Noin Ula Hsiung-nu aristocrats’ tomb, and decorative items from the Turkic Empire King Bilge’s burial are included in the holdings.
The Institute has noted that gold and other mining is now extensively exploited in Mongolia and such activities are destructive to the ancient heritage. A major role for the Institute is to regulate the archaeological sites, together with international and other domestic institutions, in order that they are conserved.
World History
