Translation. Region: Russian Federation –
Source: Novosibirsk State University –
An important disclaimer is at the bottom of this article.
In February 2025, Kim Seung-chan, Rector of Kim Il-sung University in the DPRK, asked Mikhail Fedoruk, Rector of Novosibirsk State University, to date human bones discovered in North Korea during archaeological excavations near Mount Baekdu and two other provinces. North Korean media reported this information last week. According to the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), the archaeological sites excavated in and around this area represent burial sites dating back to the feudal Joseon Dynasty. Five burial sites were excavated on the shores of Cheongju Lake, four in Daehongdang County in Ryanggang Province and Musan County in North Hamgyong Province. Korean archaeologists noted that the shape of all the discovered burial sites was similar to a Korean burial site previously discovered on an island in Samjiyon Pond No. 1.
Last January, a delegation from Kim Il Sung University, the leading university in the DPRK, visited Novosibirsk State University. During the visit, representatives from the two universities agreed to intensify interuniversity cooperation. To more effectively organize joint work, a roadmap for the coming year was signed. The universities agreed to focus their efforts on the following areas: organizing research internships for young scientists lasting one to three months in agreed-upon areas; conducting joint research, seminars and conferences at NSU and research institutes of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences; and exchanging faculty. During this official visit, samples were donated for radiocarbon dating, marking the first joint effort between the two universities under the signed roadmap.
As part of the roadmap's implementation, a series of online lectures on Juche philosophy was organized for Russian students in the fall of 2025, with students from 19 Russian universities participating. Furthermore, a decision was made to explore the possibility of opening an office of Kim Il Sung University in the Novosibirsk Akademgorodok; a potential location is currently being sought, said Yevgeny Sagaydak, Head of the NSU Education Export Department.
According to radiocarbon dating conducted at the NSU-NSC Accelerator Mass Spectrometry Center, the burials were dated to the mid-18th to mid-19th centuries, confirming the North Korean scientists' hypothesis: since the mid-18th century, people living in the Mount Paektu region, including Ryanggang and North Hamgyong provinces, have buried the remains of their loved ones around Lake Cheongji. The North Korean Society of Archaeologists has determined that the burials discovered in the Ryanggang and North Hamgyong provinces, including the shore of Lake Cheongji on Mount Paektu, were buried according to the burial custom of the Palhae kingdom. This was reported by the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) last week.
"Last March, we received bone and tooth samples from five individuals for dating using accelerator mass spectrometry. Chemical processing of the samples was performed at the Cenozoic Geochronology Center of the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, while graphitization and AMS analysis were performed at the NSU-NSC Accelerator Mass Spectrometry Center. The results were received in the summer and sent to our international colleagues. For the NSU-NSC Accelerator Mass Spectrometry Center, this is the first time the Center has worked with foreign samples, and the results have been published in the main state news agency of a friendly country," said Ekaterina Parkhomchuk, Director of the NSU-NSC Accelerator Mass Spectrometry Center.
As Ekaterina Parkhomchuk explained, radiocarbon dating is based on the quantitative determination of changes in the C-14/C-12 carbon isotope ratio, using organic matter for dating. Although the C-14 nucleus decays over time, turning into a nitrogen atom (N-14), all living biological objects, including humans, maintain approximately the same level of C-14 over thousands of years as a result of their vital activity. The Earth's atmosphere, and subsequently the entire biosphere, is constantly replenished with this isotope by cosmic rays, compensating for decaying C-14. However, as soon as exchange with the environment ceases, the C-14 concentration in the object decreases. By measuring the loss of C-14, according to the law of radioactive decay, it is possible to determine the time during which exchange with the environment did not occur—that is, the time of the object's death. In fact, radiocarbon age is the relative content of C-14 in a substance, and the calendar period, or the calendar age of an object, is determined from the radiocarbon age using the international calibration curve, which is the result of extensive interdisciplinary cross-dating of natural archives by numerous laboratories worldwide. Since C-14 is extremely rare in the biosphere—about one trillionth of C-12—the dating result is highly dependent on the preservation of the material and the quality of purification of the material being dated.
— The soil in which human remains lie for a long time can not only contaminate, but also completely destroy organic matter, therefore, of the two materials – bones and teeth – for dating, we always ask for teeth that show the most reliable age. Unlike bones, teeth consist of denser, non-porous tissue and the preservation of organic matter is better. Archaeological material from the DPRK was collected from the shore of Lake Chongji (Heavenly Lake). This is the highest crater lake in the world. It is located at the top, in the caldera of the dormant but not extinct Paektusan volcano, where active fumaroles – outlets of hot volcanic gases and steam – are still observed. Such conditions could lead to poor preservation of bone remains, so we dated collagen separately from both bone fragments and teeth, but the results of the two materials for each individual were the same, showing the same age. On average, the radiocarbon age of objects is in the range of 100-200 years, which gives a fairly wide calendar period for the origin of the remains – between 1650 and 1950 AD. However, statistical processing of all the results, carried out by Petr Menshanov, an employee of the Institute of Intelligent Robotics of NSU, made it possible to narrow the probabilistic interval and limit the age of origin of the remains to the interval 1650-1900 AD, with the median ages suggesting the most likely dates of burial in the interval between 1760 and 1820 AD, explained Ekaterina Parkhomchuk.
Sergei Alkin, PhD in history, associate professor at the Department of Archaeology and Ethnography at the Novosibirsk State University Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography, and senior researcher at the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, commented on the report by the Central Asian News Agency (CTAC) on the results of radiocarbon dating of burials at Lake Chongji.
"I think I'm right in saying that this is a unique case of dating archaeological materials from the northern part of the Korean Peninsula in our country. The first discussion of this possibility took place in Pyongyang during a discussion of possible areas of collaboration with fellow archaeologists from Kim Il Sung University in the spring of 2015. The leadership of the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences offered assistance with absolute dating of archaeological samples, and in the fall of that year, a cooperation agreement was signed between NSU and Kim Il Sung University. As part of this agreement, we helped our Korean colleagues prepare several articles by archaeologists and linguists from Pyongyang for publication in our university's journals."
In the fall of 2016, a representative NSU delegation took part in events celebrating the 70th anniversary of Kim Il Sung University. It was led by Igor Marchuk. The delegation included archaeologists and philologists from the NSU Humanities Institute. They participated in the scientific program, presenting papers in the mathematics, linguistics, and archaeology sections.
"The regions from which the NSU-NSC Accelerator Mass Spectrometry Center's shared resources were provided for study are of great interest to Russian archaeologists, as they are the northernmost provinces of the DPRK, bordering not only China but also Russia's Primorsky Krai. Therefore, any new archaeological materials from this territory are of great interest to us. They are important, first and foremost, for studying ethnocultural contacts in the ancient and medieval Far East," explained Sergei Alkin. "Since the mid-1970s, NSU archaeologists have maintained varying degrees of contact with their North Korean colleagues, but these contacts subsequently faded. It was only in 2011 that I was able to participate in a scientific conference held at Kim Il Sung University, communicate with my Pyongyang colleagues, and share with them archaeological literature published by the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography SB RAS."
Some of the samples submitted for radiocarbon dating come from burials on the shores of Lake Cheongji on Mount Paektu. In Korean mythology, Mount Paektu is a sacred mountain where, according to the myth of Tangun, the founder of the first Korean state, the ancestors of the Korean people lived. Today, Mount Paektu is a symbol of independent Korea. It is also an important place in the history of Russian-Korean relations, and is associated with Novosibirsk.
The first scientific exploration in the Paektusan region was conducted in 1898 by railway engineer and writer Nikolai Georgievich Garin-Mikhailovsky (1852-1906). He led one of the teams on Alexander Zvegintsev's expedition, whose main objective was to study the forests in the Amnokkan River basin and determine the feasibility of building a railway between Vladivostok and the Chinese port of Lüshun.
In addition to official reports, an important result was the publication of N. G. Garin-Mikhailovsky's travel notes, "Across Korea, Manchuria, and the Liaodong Peninsula" (1899), as well as his collection of Korean folktales, which became the first examples of Korean folklore published in European languages (in Europe, they were quickly translated from Russian). This book by the Russian writer is an invaluable resource for the study of 19th-century Korea. It is unlikely that another foreign author living in the modern era would have left behind works so imbued with a warm feeling for Korea and its people. N. G. Garin-Mikhailovsky's notes, in spirit and content, stand apart from the dominant trend in regional studies literature of the time. The explorer sincerely sought to understand the national character of the Koreans. During the expedition, he established personal relationships with representatives of various strata of Korean society.
"The news report we learned about from North Korean media raises many questions. The very choice of materials for analysis is interesting. All the anthropological materials come from relatively late burials, dating back to the Joseon Dynasty. Therefore, my colleagues and I eagerly await a scientific publication in the archaeological journal Chosun Koyeongu or the Kim Il Sung University Bulletin," concluded Sergei Alkin.
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