Archaeologists from the University of Wrocław studied a part of the area of the Gobi Desert in Mongolia revealing it’s interesting past. Nowadays a remote place deprived of any road infrastructure and settlements, few thousands years ago it was a thriving area with conditions more suitable for habitation than at present. The archaeologists coordinating the research, prof. Józef Szykulski and prof. Mirosław Masojć, found out that there were numerous encampments by the shores of presently dried out lakes and that there were multiple kinds of animals living in the area that were being hunted.

The research was conducted in cooperation between the Institute of Archaeology of University of Wrocław, Mongolian Academy of Sciences, Mongolian National University of Education and Museum of Archaeology in Gdańsk. The aim of the project was to reconstruct the settlement history in Pleistocene and early Holocene in the contact region of Upper Altai and the Gobi Desert.

The oldest finds, which are massive Palaeolithic stone tools are 200’000-40’000 years old. Other, smaller finds corresponding younger periods were also found, such as quern-stones, stone grinders or shards of pottery from the Neolithic period. One of the most significant finds consisted of eleven objects made of jasper. They were found on a narrow stone shelf and are dated back to ca. 40000 BC. The archaeologists also found three massive tombs covered by stone pavement that date back to the Iron Age.

(after Nauka w Polsce & J. Szykulski)