Littleton, Judith, Amgalantugs, Tsend, Karstens, Sarah, Pearlstein, Kristin, Carroll, B., Hunt, David R., Delgermaa, Lkhagvadorj, and Frohlich, Bruno. 2015. "Human remains from bronze age Khirigsuurs in Khuvsgul: a preliminary description." Studia Archaeologica 35 (3):1-12.
Between 2006 and 2009, a joint Smithsonian Institution – Mongolian Institute of Archaeology have excavated a series of khirigsuurs in the Khövsgöl aimag (Frohlich, et al., 2009, 2010). The excavation has been part of a larger survey of khirigsuurs within an 850 square kilometre area of the Khövsgöl aimag (Figure 1; (Frohlich, et al., 2009). Over this entire area an estimated two thousand khirigsuurs have been identified lying on the valley floor, and the lower and upper slopes of the low ranges between the valleys (Frohlich et al., 2009). Excavation has concentrated on sampling different topographic zones within the area, establishing the validity of the survey data, the chronological position of the mounds, the level of architectural variability, and the primary function of the mounds as well as collecting a sufficiently large sample of human remains to address issues of human adaptation to the Bronze Age environment. This report is a preliminary description of these remains.
