Associate Professor Nguyen Lan Cuong first approached the prehistoric skull

In the morning of September 18, the Vietnam Museum of Nature published the first information about a prehistoric archaeological site discovered in volcanic caves of the Special Sap forest, Krong No district, Dak Lak province. Agriculture.

In volcanic caves there are numbers from C1 to C6, scientists find thousands of relics are ceramic pieces, stone tools, stripped pieces, sketches, animal teeth, freshwater mollusk shells . This result is obtained from the research topic chaired by Dr. La The Phuc, Vietnam Nature Museum.

At the announcement, scientists and delegates heard interesting stories from the early days of approaching each piece of animal debris, bones, and tools that made the mark of prehistoric people 7,000- 4,000 years.

Most interesting is the story of Associate Professor Nguyen Lan Cuong and Vietnam Archaeological Association in the process of approaching human remains.

Professor Cuong said, he once missed the first time when the group unearthed the notice of the tibia and femur. But when the test is just the tibia of the deer.

Associate Professor Nguyen Lan Cuong discovered a prehistoric skull.

"At that time, I was very sad because of the hope of finding prehistoric human bones in the Central Highlands temporarily closed. For hundreds of years archaeologists have been searching for the bones of prehistoric people in the volcano but have not seen them yet , " said Cuong.

Fortunately, on March 18, during the C6-1 cave artifact washing process "my eyes lit up when I discovered things mixed with stone tools, animal bones, snail shells with a wisdom tooth. I have to send a picture of this molar to two friends: Prof. Hirofumi Matsumura (Japan) and Prof. Dr. Hoang Hung, former Director of the Institute of Dental - Jaw - Face University of Ho Chi Minh City Only a few hours later, both scientists answered that it was exactly human teeth , " said Cuong.

So there was the first trace of humans in the Central Highlands after years of searching even though it was just a molar tooth. A few days later I discovered more femur and tibia segments of an adult individual. Next to the excavation team discovered a child skeleton in the excavation pit.

"The skeleton revealed the back of the skull, the face was tilted, the bones of the arms, the pillars, the dials, the thighs and the tibia were upright. I directly clarified the skeleton and concluded that the skeleton was buried in a sitting position bundle of pillows, " said Cuong Cuong.

The excavation process, the scientists meticulously search every millimeter of land by the manual method of collecting archaeological remains. As of 2018, 3 Caves of human remains and at least one excavation pit have been found in the C6-1 cave, of which 5 are young children. born, an individual is a teenager and 4 individuals are adults.

"The discovery of ancient human remains in volcanic caves in the Central Highlands, is a turning point for our ancient anthropology, a great achievement of Vietnamese scientists" , PGS Cuong evaluated.

The results are now also consulted by scientists from a number of foreign scientists such as the US, China, Japan, Australia and Indonesia, . they all say that they have never discovered it. Ancient people in volcanic caves. However, to clearly identify the race, the next excavations are needed to find the skull of an adult.

According to Associate Professor Nguyen Lan Cuong, this is not difficult because adult bone has been discovered. The next steps just need to excavate further expansion to search.

The excavation of volcanic cave archaeological sites in Krong No complies with the Decision No. 52 / QD-BVHTTDL dated January 9, 2018 of the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, within the framework of the State-level scientific topic. : "Study the value of cave heritage, propose to build a museum of in-situ conservation in the Central Highlands; for example, volcanic cave in Krong No, Dak Nong province" (August 2017 - 8/2020) .