VIII.] THE NORTHERN MONGOLS. 269 



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through the Bosphorus and the Hellespont. But these inland 

 waters belonged to an earlier period, and the presence of primitive 

 peoples in Western Asia is now placed beyond reasonable doubt, 

 especially by the explorations of Prof. N. Th. Kashchenko in the 

 Tomsk district. Here were brought to light in 1896 the remains 

 of a mammoth 12 feet below the surface of a cliff which stands 

 136 feet above the present level of the river Tom. Only a few 

 small bones of the skeleton were missing, and with it were 

 associated thirty flint knives, besides scrapers and about 100 

 flakes. The large bones were split in the usual way for the ex- 

 traction of the marrow, and there were other clear indications of 

 the presence of man 1 . No doubt the mammoth, as many hold, 

 may have survived till comparatively late times in Siberia, but the 

 position, and various other circumstances exclude any recent 

 date for the present find. 



But, with the progress of archaeological research, it becomes 

 daily more evident that the whole of the North Mongol domain, 

 from Finland to Japan, has passed through the Stone and Metal 

 Ages, like most other habitable parts of the globe. During his 

 wanderings in Siberia and Mongolia in the early nineties, Herr 

 Hans Leder 2 came upon countless prehistoric stations, kurgans 

 (barrows), stone circles, and many megalithic monuments of 

 various types. In West Siberia the barrows, which consist solely 

 of earth without any stone-work, are by the present inhabitants 

 called Chudskiye Kurgani, "Chudish Graves," and, as in North 

 Russia, this term "Chude" is ascribed to a now vanished un- 

 known race which formerly inhabited the land. To them, as to 

 the " Toltecs " in Central America, all ancient monuments are 

 credited, and while some regard them as prehistoric Finns 3 , others 



1 The finder thinks " dass wir hier die Reste eines zufalligen Mahles vor 

 uns haben " (Paper read at the Congress of Russian Archaeologists, Riga, 

 August, 1896). See also S. K. Kuznesov : Fund eines Mammutskelettes &c. 

 in Mitt. d. Anthrop. Ges. Vienna, 1896, XVI. p. 186. On the strength of this 

 find Herr Kuznesov infers rather prematurely that the cradle of the European 

 Paleolithic Man is now to be sought in Siberia. 



2 Ueber Alte Grabstcitten in Sibirien und der Mongold, in Mitt. d. Anthrop. 

 Ges. Vienna, 1895, xxv. 9. 



3 This seems to be the view of Stephen Sommier, who calls them " certa- 

 mente un popolo permiano," that is, Alfred's Beoruias, who seemed to speak 



