The mummified remains of a baby thought to have been buried 1,500 years ago have been found in the Altai mountains in Siberia. The baby was kept in a stone coffin that remained sealed for 1,500 years and was wrapped in skin, leading to natural mummification. In the statement made by Gorno-Altaisk State University, it was said: “There was no soil in the stone coffin that was the baby’s grave. The body remained sealed in an air-filled room for more than 1,500 years.”

The excavations are taking place in the Kosh-Agachsky region of the Altai Republic in Siberia, which borders Mongolia, China and Kazakhstan. The gender of the child and the culture he belongs to are unknown. However, experts at the university think that the child may belong to the same culture as the Hun emperor Attila, who was born centuries later but whose ancestors came from this region. DNA analysis will be performed to investigate the child’s genetic origins.

Dr Nikita Konstantinov from Gorno-Altaisk State University told the Siberian Times: “This was a baby, maybe a month old, maybe even a newborn. The baby was buried in a smaller tumulus between two larger tumuli where the adults were buried.”

“We think that these larger tumuli probably belong to the child’s parents.”
“Staying trapped in the stone coffin for 1,500 years caused the baby’s soft tissue and parts of the leather shroud to be partially well preserved. Unfortunately, the baby’s head was not well protected.”
“We know very little about this culture, but we can see that it was different from other cultures from this period.

We hope that DNA analysis will help us understand who these people were and their migration routes in Altai at that time. “Although the mummified remains are currently kept at the university, after research we will most likely give them to the local museum in Kosh-Agach,” says Konstantinov. The climate of the Altai Mountains is particularly conducive to the recovery of human remains. Many important discoveries have previously been made in these regions, such as the mummified “Ice Princess” in 1993.

Source: http://arkeofili.com/?p=8680