Two skeletons without skulls, buried together in the same tomb, have bewildered archeologists in north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, who are trying to uncover the centuries-old mystery.

Though headless, the skeletons were otherwise well-preserved, said Ma Fenglei, an archeologist with the Chifeng City Museum who headed the excavation. "Even the copper bracelets and rings they wore remain intact," he said.

It was one of the 13 tombs recently discovered in Songshan Mountain on the city's outskirts. The other 12 tombs contained just one human skeleton each, Ma said.

Tara, director of the Institute of Cultural Heritage and Archeology in Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, assumed the tombs could date back 2,000 years ago.

The tombs contained very few sacrificial objects except for segments of animal bones and some earthen pots. "We're confident the tomb owners were nomadic Xianbei people, most probably warriors," Ma said.

Ma and his colleagues were also surprised to find a skeleton kneeling in a grave, a posture rarely found in previous archeological findings.

The Xianbei ethnic group, native to China's northeast, moved to the present-day Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region around the third century and later moved to Shanxi Province to establish the Northern Wei Dynasty (386-534).

Experts say excavation of the Xianbei tombs offers valuable clues to the study of the history of the tribe.
 
(Xinhua News Agency June 9, 2005)