The following is my translation of an article called: 'Die neuen vorgeschichtlicen Funde in der Mongolei' von T. Kellen.
It appeared in a German popular science magazine, Kosmos Handweiser für Naturfreunde 1924, Heft 6, Seiten 167-170. Its interest for me centres on this being an accessibly written summary dating from the time of the famous AMNH expeditions, which hadn't been completed. A third occurred subsequent to this report, but it wasn't until the 1990s that US researchers returned for more. (Mongolian, Polish and Russian colleagues had been active in the meantime.) Some of the information is drastically out of date and several hypotheses turned out to be utterly wrong!
Trevor Dykes.

The new prehistoric finds from Mongolia by T. Kellen
Prehistoric research and excavations are constantly producing new surprises. Indeed, it appears as if the age of great discoveries has only just commenced. Until now some finds were made purely due to chance, although deliberately planned research has also often been rewarded with exceptional successes.

Many experts have long been of the opinion that our fauna was largely Asiatic in origins, and that the American fauna arrived via a landbridge which connected America with Asia. Professor Henry Fairfield Osborn, director of the American Museum of Natural History in New York, had also come to this conclusion, and he had early thoughts about a scientific research expedition to Asia in order to find supporting evidence.

The American Museum of Natural History took up the challenge in association with the American Asian Society and the newspaper Ajia and, as it is easier in America than in Germany to obtain the necessary funds for such a scientific endeavour, which had absolutely no practical (meaning financial) objectives, the research association was able to procure a great deal of backing. The expedition left New York at the start of the year 1921. It was led by the zoologist Roy Chapman Andrews, who gained the services of a row of experts; people such as Walter Granger, manager of the paleontological department, Charles P Berkey, manager of the geological department, Frederick K Morris, geologist and topographist, and also an assistant for zoology, three assistants for paleontology, a photographer and so on. There were also car drivers, a translator, a representative of the Mongolian government, nine Chinese representatives, nine Mongolian assistants and indigenous personnel for a caravan of 75 camels to transport the necessary food and fuel for five motor vehicles.

The first year was spent in Peking for the necessary preparations including the selection and training of the native personnel. Then, in the years of 1922 and 1923, journeys were undertaken into the central and western parts of the Mongolian Gobi Desert. Each journey lasted for five months and, during this time, some 10,000 km of travel took them through more or less unknown regions.

The results were more than rich. 1922 produced fossils from thick rock layers dating from the Cretaceous and Tertiary; skeletons of prehistoric dinosaurs and mammals; the latter can be seen as being the ancestors of European and American mammals. There was a skull of Baluchitherium, a giant rhinoceros which is the largest known mammal in the world. Geological and geographical surveying was also done, and thousands of living specimens of mammals, birds, fish, reptiles etc (including new species) were collected, and film material was taken (7,000 metres).

The first skull of a dinosaur was found by chance when it was noticed by one of the research association photographers. It was not known what it was until it reached America, where Dr WG Gregory was able to recognise it as an ancestor of a larger American dinosaur. It was named Protoceratops andrewsi.

The expedition of the next year returned to the same place in the foothills of Altai. The harvest of that year (1923) was much richer; more than 200 boxes were filled with finds. Among them were 70 skulls of Protoceratops in various stages of growth; skeleton parts of larger dinosaurs related with Trachodon and Iguanodon (terrestrial and aquatic dinosaurs with duck beaks); a dozen skulls of titanotheres, an extinct family of huge animals first found in South Dakota, and being evidence of a prehistoric connection between Asia and America; a complete skeleton and further bones of rhinoceros similar to ones from Nebraska (described by Leidy in 1869); also many remains from aquatic invertebrates from the Permian, evidence that part of an ocean then stretched through Mongolia. The existence of prehistoric mammals was already known from finds in the North American states of Utah, Wyoming and South Dakota, so the discovery of 25 dinosaur eggs was a greater surprise. The dinosaurs were enormous lizards; a skeleton found in 1914 in the American state of Alberta is six metres long and two metres tall. It was not previously known that dinosaurs laid eggs. The material recovered dates from the Lower Cretaceous and is estimated to be ten million years old. They are brown in colour, fossilized and look like hard sandstone. They were found in Chagan Ror in the Altai Mountains (western Mongolia), some of them under a dinosaur skeleton. This discovery is so significant that Professor Osborn felt it necessary to travel to Asia himself, in order to participate in further excavations.

That these are dinosaur eggs is clear, as no remains of other animals were found in those particular places. Some of the eggs are complete and others are broken. Nine are significantly smaller than the rest, and that indicates they probably originated from a different species.

What is even more remarkable, in some broken eggs the contents have also fossilized, and it is possible to clearly recognise the delicate skeletons of dinosaur embryos. A find such as this was previously unknown to science.

An attempt has already been made at the American Museum of Natural History to present an image of Protoceratops in a reconstructed prehistoric landscape.

Precisely what the conditions were, which allowed the remains of dinosaurs to be found in precisely this place, naturally is subject to presumption. Perhaps it was a result of the presence of water or the local plant life, which happened to make this spot an assembly point for animals, so that a great number were present when some catastrophe or other overwhelmed them. Andrews holds it for likely that an age difference of thousands of years separates the upper and lower layers deposited at that locality.

The American researchers have now collected the evidence which shows that a large number of American and European mammals had their origins in Central Asia and, until the most recent geological period, there was a land connection (Alaska) with America. Mongolia was a dry land with fertile, forested plains and a temperate climate during a time before the Himalayas arose, and when America and Europe were hardly more elevated than just above sea level. Already, earlier than 10,000 centuries ago, animals lived there. However, no traces of human ancestors have been found, although Professor Osborn believes that, during the Tertiary, Mongolia must have offered suitable conditions for people. Professor Osborn maintains it is possible that traces of human ancestors could yet be found in the Pliocene strata, which are over a million years old. Furthermore, human remains could be more difficult to discover because the first people would not have been numerous, and would not have been so easily trapped by catastrophes as the animals, and their bones are not as resistant as those from the prehistoric giant animals.

Andrews believes that the much sought for paradise can now be geographically located with precision: It was Chagon Nor in Mongolia where the oldest known vertebrates in the world have been found. But Osborn is of the opinion that, not only was this the Eden of animals, it was also where the Eden of humanity will be found, and he hopes to provide evidence for this in the coming years. A new expedition is already envisaged, and it is expected to require five years. For the while though, the American researchers are busy working through the rich results from the excavations already conducted, and in attempting to find the finance for their next journey (partly through the sale of single dinosaur eggs).

Translator's note: No great effort has been put into transposing the style of the original article. The age of the Djadokhta Formation (to use current terminology) is now known to be Campanian, Upper Cretaceous and not Lower Cretaceous.

An index of more of my translations of old Kosmos articles can be found at:

Kosmos Translations Archive

A number of Mesozoic (and post-Mesozoic) location summaries can be found at Localities.