Ancient Human Remains in the Eastern Kunlun

Ancient Human Remains in the Eastern Kunlun

In 1984, staff from the Altun Mountain Nature Reserve accidentally discovered a large number of obviously worked fragments of crystal and flint in a gully on the western bank of the source of the Hashialeke Darya River, at the foot of the Kulukepitilek Tagh Mountain. The area is surrounded on three sides by granite mountains, with the Kaladun Grassland to the north, and the mountains contain developed quartz veins and crystals. Within a gully that stretches 4 kilometers from north to south and 0.5 kilometers from east to west, discarded stone fragments and tools are scattered everywhere, easily found. After sorting, the stone tools included 21 arrowheads, 12 fan-shaped stone cores, 32 stone flakes, and 1 necklace bead. Identified by the Institute of Paleoanthropology at the Beijing Natural History Museum and the Xinjiang Archaeological Research Institute, these were confirmed to be artifacts from the microlithic period, dating back 10,000 to 50,000 years. Judging by the fine craftsmanship of the stone tools, this ancient stone tool manufacturing site in the Eastern Kunlun saw frequent human activity, providing new clues for the study of the distribution of ancient Qiang tribal groups.