The Kulun Flag Museum was founded in 1993 and is located in three monasteries. In 2009, the Kulun Banner Government invested in the construction of a new museum in the new area of Kulun Town, covering an area of 10,000 square meters, with a construction area of 12,000 square meters, a total of three floors, a total investment of 45 million yuan, consisting of two parts: museum and library. Among them, the museum has a construction area of 8,000 square meters, relying on the profound historical and cultural heritage of Kulun Banner, taking "the city of intersection and the rhyme of culture" as the starting point, taking "grassland famous city, open Kulun, harmonious society, harmonious space" as the overall design concept, and at the same time embodying the concept and inheritance of traditional culture "unity of nature and man, harmonious symbiosis", is the only comprehensive museum in the country with the theme of Andai art, religion and culture, and is "the hometown of Chinese Andai art", "the hometown of Chinese buckwheat culture" and "the hometown of Chinese Mongolian medicine culture". A banner of China's famous historical and cultural towns".
Located in the transition area from the northern Yanshan Mountains to the Horqin Sandy Land, Kulun Banner was an important habitat for paleontological communities such as mammoths and woolly rhinoceros during the Pleistocene (from 2,588,000 years ago to 11,700 years ago). A large number of paleontological fossils have been unearthed in the flag, including a number of hairy rhinoceros, mammoths, primitive cattle, bison, Wang's buffalo, wild horses, bighorn deer, hyenas and other famous Quaternary paleontological typical breeds, with rich and prosperous species forms. The loess hills and ravines in Kulun Banner are 1.2 million mu, accounting for 17% of the total area, and the valleys in the area are staggered, and many ancient fossils buried deep under the strata are exposed due to the erosion of flowing water, which is a natural treasure house of fossils and has a superior geopark foundation. Among them, the fossil skeleton of the woolly rhinoceros unearthed in Liujiazi Town is currently the largest fossil of the woolly rhinoceros in China. The large number of excavations and displays of paleontological fossils will inevitably become an important boost to build a famous banner of global tourism culture.
Paleontological fossil exhibition hall
Numerous Quaternary paleontological fossil specimens have been unearthed from Kulun Banner in Tongliao City, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, of which half of them are woolly rhinoceros fossils. The average body length of the common woolly rhinoceros is 3.5-4 meters, the shoulder height is about 2 meters, and the average weight is 4.5-4.8 tons.
Woolly rhinoceros skeleton fossils Woolly rhinoceros skeleton fossils
Fossil rhinoceros skulls
The king of the Chinese woolly rhinoceros
The King of the Chinese Woolly Rhinoceros in the Collection of the Kulun Banner Religious Museum, unearthed in Liujiazi Town, Kulun Banner, was discovered by local farmer Cui Guoyou in June 2019 and donated to the Kulun Banner Religious Museum. The fossil skeleton of this rhinoceros is more than 5 meters long overall, and the living state weight is expected to be 6-7 tons, which should be a mature young individual according to the teeth. It is the largest surviving fossil of the woolly rhinoceros unearthed in China, and is the veritable king of the woolly rhinoceros. The King of the Chinese Woolly Rhinoceros in the Collection of the Kulun Banner Religious Museum, unearthed in Liujiazi Town, Kulun Banner, was discovered by local farmer Cui Guoyou in June 2019 and donated to the Kulun Banner Religious Museum. The fossil skeleton of this rhinoceros is more than 5 meters long overall, and the living state weight is expected to be 6-7 tons, which should be a mature young individual according to the teeth. It is the largest surviving fossil of the woolly rhinoceros unearthed in China, and is the veritable king of the woolly rhinoceros.
The largest volume of woolly rhinoceros skeleton fossils unearthed in China
The woolly rhinoceros, also known as the long-haired rhinoceros, is an extinct rhinoceros belonging to the genus Rhinoceros, belonging to the subfamily Biceral rhinoceros of the family Rhinoceros. It is so named because of the thick hair all over the body. The woolly rhinoceros lived during the Pleistocene, the same age as the true mammoth, and survived the Ice Age. It is active in northern Eurasia and lives with its giant rhinoceros plate-toothed rhinoceros, which belongs to the same family as the true rhinoceros family. The woolly rhino was once a hunting object for Paleolithic humans, and its extinction date was only 10,000 years from the 21st century, making it the latest prehistoric rhinoceros to become extinct.
Mammoth skeleton fossils
<h3 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > mammoth, also known as the woolly elephant (longhair), is an animal adapted to cold climates. Once one of the largest elephants in the world, the prairie mammoth weighs up to 12 tons. Mammoths and Asian elephants branched out from the same ancestors 4.8 million years ago, while African elephants were separated from this family tree some 7.3 million years ago. </h3>
<h3 class = "pgc-h-arrow-right" > tall and strong, with stout legs, four toes on the feet, a particularly large head, and a pair of curved front teeth growing out of its mouth. A mature mammoth, up to 5 meters long, about 3 meters tall, similar to Asian elephants, incisors about 1.5 meters long, it is covered with black fine long hair, the skin is very thick, with a very thick fat layer, up to 9 cm thick. </h3>
Mammoth ivory fossil Mammoth ivory fossil
The last mammoths, extinct around 2000 BC, were important hunting objects for Stone Age humans, and early humans can be seen on the walls of many cave sites in Europe, this animal survived until 10,000 years ago, and mammoth skeleton fossils were also unearthed in Kulun Banner and are widely distributed. Frozen mammoth corpses have been found more than once in frozen soils and ice abroad.
Fossilized original cow skulls
The primitive cattle are typical species of the Quaternary mammoth and woolly rhinoceros fauna in Northeast China, and lived in the same period as mammoths, woolly rhinos, Northeast bison, Wang's buffalo, and Przewalski's wild horses. Primitive cattle lived in northern China in the late Quaternary Late Pleistocene, 10,000 to 50,000 years ago. Primitive cattle live on land, is a large, fierce animal, the individual is more than twice the size of modern cattle, there are two long horns adapted to the dense grassland, open forest environment and cold environment, some studies have shown that the primitive cattle in the Pleistocene period is the most widely distributed, is the ancestor of all domestic cattle.
Fossil skulls of bighorn deer
The bighorn deer is the largest known deer. A genus of ancient mammals. Living between 3 million and 12,000 years ago, fossils were found in Hebei, Shanxi, Inner Mongolia and other places in China, and there are many caves in Beijing Zhoukoudian Beijing Ape Man. Often active in peat swamps, this ancient deer has an astonishingly large horn and a width of 2. 5 meters, so call it bighorn deer.
The Bighorn Deer in the Loop is a large deer that lived in the Loop region tens of thousands of years ago. At that time, the climate in this area was wetter than in the 21st century, and there were large lakes in the grasslands and woods nearby. The Bighorn deer in Hetao live in the woods on the edge of the grassland, feeding on leaves and young shoots. Along with it lived in this area were primitive cattle, cattle, red deer, wild boars, nama ancient elephants, woolly rhinoceros, wild horses, horned antelopes, ostriches, etc. The Hetao bighorn deer was the hunting object of the "Hetao people" living in this area at that time.
When the climate changes at the end of the final ice age, the plants in the habitat are also estimated to change enough to provide sufficient nutrients. The recent discovery of a largehorn deer specimen in western Siberia (estimated to be about 7700 years ago, after the Ice Age) shows signs of no nutrient stress. This apparently largehorn deer inhabits the continental climate where there are no or no so-called plant changes.
In general, there are several theories about the reasons for the disappearance of the bighorn deer in individual places, but there is no conclusive theory as to the eventual disappearance of the bighorn deer in Eurasia. It is said that this is a combination of human presence and habitat reduction.
Fossil skull of Wang's buffalo
Bubalus wangsjoki is a late Pleistocene ungulateded bovine whose fossils have only been found in Manchuria, Harbin and Sarah Wusu, China, with a large body, 3 meters long and 1.8 meters shoulder height. The head horns are short and thick and point posteriorly upwards, gradually thinning from the base of the horns to the tip of the corners.
The first fossil of Wang's buffalo was discovered in 1922 by Wangchuk, a Mongolian farmer in Wushenqi, Inner Mongolia. Wangchuk usually uses a Chinese name, called Shi Wangshun. When the French priest Sang Zhihua went to Inner Mongolia to conduct archaeological investigations and hired a group of Chinese farmers to dig up fossils, Shi Wangshun was one of the main participants in the excavations, and he dug up the skull fossils of this buffalo. At that time, the peasants who participated in the excavation did not call him Shi Wangshun, nor did they call him Lao Shi, but affectionately called him Wang Shun. The French priest, who thought his surname was Wang, recorded it in French pinyin. Later, paleontologists Boole and De Rijin identified it as a new species when they studied this fossil specimen of buffalo, and in honor of the discoverer, they named it "Wang's Buffalo" with the surname recorded by the French priest.
Experts have speculated about the discovery of buffalo fossils in the northeast. The first view is that at that time, the climate in the northeast region was warm and the water and grass were abundant, which was suitable for the survival and habitat of buffalo, and later due to climate changes, the environment changed, resulting in the continuous southward movement of the buffalo living area. The second is the seasonal migration of animals, that the buffalo once had the habit of migrating in groups, going north in summer, returning to the south in winter, and the buffalo fossils found in the northeast and Inner Mongolia were accidentally killed when the buffalo came to the fossil site in the summer. The third view is that the Wang's buffalo belongs to a unique local hardy population along with the mammoths and woolly rhinoceros commonly found in northeast and Inner Mongolia.
As we all know, both modern elephants and rhinos are warm-loving animals in the south, but in the late Pleistocene, especially in the period between 40,000 and 10,000 years ago, mammoths and woolly rhinos lived in the north, and their fossils have been found in large quantities. The carcasses of belted flesh excavated from the Siberian permafrost confirm that they are covered with long hairs, have thick skin, store a lot of fat under the skin, and are fully adaptable to the cold climate of the northern winter, and can be adapted by large animals such as elephants and rhinos.
Trilobite fossils
Trilobites are the most representative ancient animals that appeared in the Cambrian period 560 million years ago, which is a kind of arthropod, the whole body is clearly divided into three parts: head, thorax and tail, the dorsal carapace is hard, and the dorsal carapace is divided into three roughly equal longitudinal segments - an axis leaf and two rib leaves, so it is called trilobite. Trilobites reached their peak 500 million to 430 million years ago, and by the Permian period 240 million years ago, they had survived on the earth for more than 320 million years, which showed that this is a type of organism with strong vitality. Over the course of time, they evolved into a wide variety of species, some up to 70 centimeters long, some only 2 millimeters long.
Fossils of the strange ring-footed shrimp
The Exotic Ring-footed Shrimp , from the Late Jurassic to the Early Cretaceous , is a larger group of invertebrates in the Rehe biota. It belongs to the genus Archaeopter in the family Astacida of the family Crawfish. The cephalothorax is large and cylindrical, the frontal sword is developed, and the neck groove is simple. The first 3 pairs of 5 pairs of footlets have pliers, the first pair is the most developed, crab-shaped, symmetrical left and right, and the fourth and fifth pairs of claws. The tail limbs are butterfly-wing-shaped and the outer leaves are broad. Male individuals have a rod-shaped first gastropod and no specialization of the second gastropod. Females have an inguinal groove structure.
Asian wild horse
Przewalski's wild horse, also known as the Mongolian wild horse, is the only remaining wild horse in the world today, with a 60 million years of evolutionary history, and is known as a "living fossil" by the world. It retains the original genes of the only horse on the earth, which has a biological significance that cannot be compared with other species, and is a rarer species than the giant panda. During the Late Pleistocene period, przewalski's wild horses were widely distributed, and wild horse fossils have been found in many Late Pleistocene fauna and paleoanthropological sites in northern China.
Fossil platypus mustang skull
The ancestors of Przewalski's wild horses were Archaeopteryx that lived in the Tertiary and Eocene periods more than 50 million years ago, when their bodies were only as large as foxes, with 4 toes on their forefoots and 3 toes on their hind feet, living in the forests of North America, feeding on young leaves and fruits, similar to modern chamois scurrying between bushes. With the climate change on the earth, grasslands and deserts are gradually increasing, and the horses that originally adapted to forest life are also changing in order to adapt to the new environment, and the horses have gradually adapted to grassland life from adapting to forest life, that is, from jumping to running, from eating the young leaves of trees to eating rough grass.
Fossil mandible of Przewalski's wild horse
The Przewalski's wild horse is the only surviving wild horse on Earth, native to the Beita Mountain in the Junggar Basin of Xinjiang, China, and the Area around the Mane Mountain at the junction of Gansu and Inner Mongolia. With a 60 million-year evolutionary history, the Przewalski's wild horse, about 2,000 in the world, is a rarer species than the giant panda.
Wood fossils
Wood fossils are tree fossils formed by the exchange of SiO2 (silica) in the groundwater after the trees are quickly buried underground. It preserves the wooden structure and texture of the trees. The color is earth yellow, light yellow, yellowish brown, reddish brown, gray white, gray black, etc., the polishing surface can have glass luster, opaque or slightly transparent, because the texture of some wood fossils shows a jade texture, also known as silicified wood or tree jade. Western mystics believe that the original rotten wood, after being replaced by quartz, turned into an immortal gemstone, so they believe that wood fossils have the energy characteristics of eternity, longevity and immortality.
Fossil hyena skull
Hyenas are an extinct, large and terrifying carnivore. Its skull is very stout, with thick and extended nasal bones, a strong zygomatic arch, a raised domed forehead, and huge buccal teeth. Although the head and shape of hyenas are more similar to those of dogs or wolves, they are actually members of the cat-type suborder and are closely related to civet cats.
Wolffin fish fossils
Wolffin fish are primitive bony fish of many species endemic to East Asia in the late Mesozoic (Late Jurassic-Early Cretaceous). It is now extinct.
Fish in this newspaper were first found in the Cambrian Period, flourished in the Devonian Period, carapaceous fish were almost extinct in the Carboniferous and Permian Periods, cartilaginous fish and bony fish arose, and from the Mesozoic Era, bony fish gradually flourished more than cartilaginous fish until modern times.
At a time when wolffin fish lived, before humans appeared, the species on Earth were very different from those of this time, there were very few types of mammals, birds had just been born, and most of the earth was covered by oceans. However, fish have evolved, wolffin fish are also teleost fish, and like most of the fish we see, the bones have been ossified into hard bones, and the angiosperms in plants are just beginning to sprout. The exact geological age is the late Jurassic period, which is about 140 million years from now.
Dinosaur egg fossils
Dinosaur eggs are very valuable paleontological fossils, first discovered in 1859 in the Cretaceous strata of Provence, southern France. According to research, the form of dinosaur egg fossils has a variety of shapes such as round, oval, oval, oblong oval and olive shape. Dinosaur egg fossils vary in size, with smaller ones being similar to duck eggs, with a minimum diameter of less than 10 centimeters; the larger ones with a diameter of more than 50 centimeters. The outer surface of the eggshell is smooth or has a dotted line finish.
China is a country in the world where dinosaur egg fossils are buried exceptionally richly. Don't look at the huge body of dinosaurs, but the eggs that can be laid are relatively small in comparison. This is mainly because the pressure of birth is easy to squeeze the eggshell to pieces; if the eggshell is too thick, it is not conducive to the dinosaur's cubs easily breaking out of the shell like birds. Most dinosaurs can lay such a small egg, which is conducive to the preservation of dinosaur eggs and the reproduction of dinosaur races. The fossilized dinosaur eggs found now have been turned into stones after more than 70 million years, and they are no longer the original eggs. But the structure of the dinosaur egg can still be seen in it. If you cut the dinosaur eggs with a slicer, you can clearly see that the vast majority here are calcite, because the dinosaur eggs have been completely petrified.
Through the study of dinosaur eggs, different types of dinosaur eggs can be classified, and the geological age can also be determined through dinosaur eggs, so as to clarify the age of the strata and further help humans find underground treasures.
Nautilus fossils
In the Ordovician ocean, the Nautilus is the top predator, it can reach 11 meters in length, mainly feeding on trilobites, sea scorpions, etc., in that era of marine invertebrates, it dominated the entire ocean with its large size, sensitive sense of smell and fierce beak.
Nautilus was almost all over the world during the Paleozoic Era, but has largely disappeared, with only six species of Nautilus still existing in the deep seas of the South Pacific.
The Nautilus appeared as early as 500 million years ago, and the existing ammonite, Aurora Horn and other fossils are the ancestors of the Nautilus, and the largest Nautilus fossil is found in the Ordovician formation for more than 10 meters. Octopus, squid, squid, etc. of its kind have undergone great changes in their bodies during evolutionary development, and some shells outside the body have been transferred into the body, such as squid. Some leave only a gelatinous film, such as squid. Other shells have disappeared, such as octopuses. Their swimming speed has increased, but the shell of the Nautilus has not changed much since it evolved into its current appearance, so it is the oldest and lowest species of mollusks in existence, and it is also an important material for the study of biological evolution, paleontology and paleoclimate, known as "living fossils". What has changed slightly is that the living environment has moved from the original shallow sea to a deep sea of 200 to 400 meters.
Sea lily fossils
Sea lilies are a kind of echinoderms first seen in the Early Cambrian Period, living in the sea, with multiple brachiopods, a flower-shaped body, a calcareous shell on the surface, because they look like plants, people have given them the name of sea lilies. The body of the sea lily has a stalk like a plant stem, and the pinnate thing at the upper end of the stalk is their tentacles, also called wrists. These tentacles, like the leaves of ferns, confuse people into thinking they are plants. Sea lilies are an ancient invertebrate that, hundreds of millions of years ago, were everywhere in the ocean.
Fossil skull of a cave bear
Cave bears are a species of bear that lived in northern Eurasia in the Pleistocene and became extinct during the Ice Age about 20,000 years ago. Because its fossils are mostly found in caves, it is named "Cave Bear", and in many famous caves, almost all the skeleton fossils of cave bears have been found. In addition, cave bear fossils have been found in Zhoukoudian, Beijing, China, and are very rare fossil species.
Cave bears live about 30 years , and are generally thought to be herbivores , feeding mainly on grasses and berries , but sometimes eating honey. Over the past 30 years, studies of cave bear skulls, jaws, and teeth have shown that cave bears are likely to be a herbivorous animal. The isotopes C and N of cave bears are similar to those of herbivores, and there is no difference between male and female.
Fossil evidence from various periods suggests that throughout the Pleistocene, 300,000 to 15,000 years ago, cave bears spread to all corners of Eurasia, and at the end of the Pleistocene, the last cave bears lived in central and southern Europe. It wasn't until the end of the final ice age that they really began to disappear. Cave bears do not live alone, but exist in small family groups, with considerable coordination and contact with each other. The paw prints of cave bears are often clearly identifiable on the walls of some caves, a recurring conscious act of expanding their living space.
Cave bear skulls have been found near many caves in Europe and Asia. In some areas, their skulls were used as the skulls of dragons, giving rise to many local legends. In Austria, a carving known as a dragon is clearly derived from the skull of a cave bear, and its carving time is probably around 1400 AD.
In the excavations of many caves in the Caucasus Mountains, scientists have identified 6 or 7 caves with remnants of ancient human life, while the rest of the caves are often inhabited by cave bears. Through research, among the remains of food remnants of ancient humans, scientists have identified some of the remains of 2 to 6 cave bears. In Switzerland, through the investigation of 15 caves with cave bear remains, two are also related to ancient humans, and these remains are basically determined to be in the Magdaran period; the cave bear remains in the German Alps are also in the Magdaland period.
According to research, long before the appearance of the Krumanom in Europe, the number of cave bears has been significantly reduced. This suggests that Neanderthals had also begun hunting cave bears, but when more advanced humans emerged, their relatively advanced tools and hunting techniques further exacerbated the rate of cave bear extinction. (In early European petroglyphs, there are scenes of ancient humans rounding up furious bears with spears.)
Causes of extinction:
Many years ago, the skeleton remains of cave bears were found in some caves and speculated that they may have died during hibernation. In 2008, scientists combined climate change during the cave bear's life to calculate that the time of their extinction was 27,800 years ago, when the climate was characterized by significantly cold weather, which led to a large reduction or complete disappearance of the plants that the cave bear ate. It was the extinction of cave bears due to food disruptions, and ancient mammals—hairy mammoths, hairy rhinos, giant deer, and cave lions—also disappeared at the end of the Ice Age.
Paleontological fossil exhibition hall part
Student visits
Source: Kulun Flag Religious Museum