Chapter 4 Chapter 4 Suspicious Bones

The bulldozers roared, and the hillsides were pushed down one by one, and the hills, forests, and valleys of the past turned into dull flat land in an instant.It turns out that rolling hills, ravines and lowlands all over them, forests where birds and insects inhabit, small rivers, swamps, and valleys are all natural wonders that have been formed after thousands or even hundreds of thousands of years. It was ruthlessly ravaged under the crawler of mechanical civilization. Those land developers don't have the slightest love for the delicate work of nature imprinted on the land, and they don't have the slightest nostalgia for how the long river of history once flowed on this land.

Instead, nature became an obstacle to their development.In order to get rid of the interference of nature and let the land bring them the maximum profit, it is their top priority to reshape the land. As a result, the roar of bulldozers sounded in the interesting nature, and the dump trucks shuttled back and forth in it. In an instant, the boring "artificial new land" appeared. Nature and history were suffocated, and new They settled here like the western pioneers who drove out the Indians and gave each new land their new place names. Place names with profound historical connotations were discarded and replaced by place names that corresponded to artificial new places, such as terraces, hills, new districts, parks, and gardens, which were extremely boring and mediocre.

In the Shitaya area of ​​Kurihara, Zama City, Kanagawa Prefecture, the roar of bulldozers has also been heard recently.The construction site is located in the hilly area north of Kashiwadai Station on the Sagami Railway, where National Highway and Route 246 intersect. The area under the jurisdiction of Zama City extends from the west of the Sagamihara Mountains to the left bank of the Sagami River. On the hillsides, on the Duanqiu cliffs, and on the stone walls of the valley where the Sagami River flows, monuments and ancient tombs from the Jomon period can be seen everywhere.Ebina City, which is adjacent to Zama City to the south, is the seat of the ancient Sagami Kingdom.

The land reclamation project was organized and implemented by the Ebina City National Chamber of Commerce.This project was contracted by the Chamber of Commerce from Lingjing Real Estate Company, a large real estate company. Due to the heavy rain during the construction period, the project had to be interrupted for a period of time, which greatly delayed the construction period. If the work cannot be delivered on time, it will definitely affect future orders, so the workers are working overtime around the clock. The protagonist of earth-making engineering is the bulldozer.Masao Oki, the operator, worked overtime day and night non-stop.The bulldozer, the biggest enemy in the eyes of green environmental protection organizers, has now become his loyal helper.In addition to the function of bulldozing, by replacing the front parts, it becomes a universal machine integrating multiple functions such as excavation, transportation, and flat stacking.

At this moment, as long as he steps on the accelerator and pulls the joystick, the land imprinted with a long history will be razed to the ground, and any tenacious resistance will become futile. The forest was felled, the rocks and roots were removed, the uneven land was leveled, just like a man forcing violence on a disobedient woman, the mechanical hand was full of unrestrained joy and pleasure. The bulldozer raised the earth-moving board and ran over it without hesitation. It is a symbol of a man's will, and it is a Hummer that only conquerors can leap. "Hey, it's time to eat!"

Azuchi, who was driving a forklift over there, called. Antu's task is to load the soil pushed by the big wood into the dump truck.Scrapers, bulldozers, forklifts, and dump trucks coordinate operations in an orderly manner, greatly improving work efficiency.Now the last dump truck is full of dirt and has just driven away. "O—K." Damu agreed and pushed the last shovel. The earth-moving board feels a little strange, as if a hole has been shoveled, and when the earth-moving board is pulled up, a hole suddenly appears on the slope of the soil wall. "what?" Oki felt puzzled and was about to see Wei.

"What's going on?" Antu's voice drifted over. "There's a hole here." "What hole?" "Like a bomb shelter." For the sake of caution, Damu pushed another shovel.The entrance of the hole expanded, and a deep hole appeared in front of you. "It seems very deep inside." Damu peeped inside from the hole and said. "Why is there an air-raid shelter here?" Antu said on the forklift. "That's nothing strange, it's close to Atsugi Airport." Damu said, jumping off the bulldozer and walking to the edge of the hole.

"I'll go in and have a look." Damu said as he lifted his legs and stepped in. "Hey, be careful!" Antu called out from behind.There is a danger of asphyxiation due to lack of oxygen or collapse. "Do not worry!" Big Wood began to move slowly inside.Because the eyes were not used to it when I first entered, I couldn't see anything inside.Although there is a lot of humidity, it is not difficult to breathe.After a long time, my eyes finally got used to it, and I could vaguely see the outline inside. The further I walked, the bigger the space inside appeared.The height of the hole is as high as a person, and the width is still enough to stretch out your hands.The depth of the hole is very deep, and it spreads out like a fan. It doesn't look like an air-raid shelter.

"Hey, it's time to come back!" Antu's voice came from the entrance of the cave. Damu also began to feel a little uncomfortable. Just as he was about to return, he suddenly felt a "creak" under his feet as if he was stepping on something, like the sound of brittle clay breaking.Because the hole is too small and there is not enough light, it is difficult to see what is stepping on. "Hello, how are you doing?" "There seems to be something." "Something? What?" "I'll take it out now." Damu grabbed a fragment of something that had been trampled and went back to the hole.

The light outside made him unable to keep his eyes open for a long time. "What is this?" Antu took the fragments brought back by Oki and observed them carefully.After a while, Oki also opened his eyes and joined in the observation. The color of this thing is like a dry tree fork, with a layer of soil stuck to it, and the sections at both ends are wrinkled like rough limestone. "This can't be a bone, can it?" Damu finally opened his mouth. "Bone? What kind of bone?" An Tu looked surprised. "It's such a deep hole that cats and dogs can't get in. If you want to talk about bones, it may be human bones."

"Human bones? How could there be human bones in this kind of cave?" "Maybe it's the bones of ancient people. Don't forget that there are many historic sites in this area." The southern part of the Kanto region is home to many monuments and ancient tombs.Damu has also excavated ancient tomb sites in past construction operations. "It's not ancient people, it's the bones of modern people." "What did you say?" This time it was Damu's turn to be surprised. "Perhaps someone knew there was a hole and hid the body here." "You mean it's a murdered human skeleton?" "It's possible." "What's the next step?" "Let's report to the foreman first." The on-site foreman showed a bitter face when he heard about it.The construction period was already late, but now that human bones have been discovered, it will be too late if the police intervene. The company held a meeting overnight to study countermeasures.One opinion is that if you don't report the case to the police station first, you might be able to get away with pretending not to know.Another opinion is that things would have been worse if the killer had hired a confession to exhume the body after the project was completed.In the end, the second opinion prevailed and it was decided to report the incident to the police. The police station immediately dispatched personnel to the scene after receiving the report.Through the search in the cave, eight human bones and five human bone fragments were found. After preliminary deduction, these were human femur and waist bone fragments. In addition to human bones, dozens of pottery fragments were also found.It is speculated that this is one of the horizontal tombs in the area.So the police immediately contacted the Social Education Section of the Zama City Education Commission. Zama City Social Education Department immediately negotiated with Lingjing Real Estate Company and asked it to suspend the project. Afterwards, personnel from the Municipal Cultural Relics Protection Committee entered the scene and determined through investigation that this was a horizontal tomb.In accordance with the Cultural Heritage Protection Act, an investigation report was submitted to the head of the Cultural Agency.At the same time, we contacted the Cultural Relics Protection Division of the Kanagawa County Education Commission for their specific guidance on the next step of response. After forensic examination of the discovered human bones, the police identified the human bones as being at least hundreds of years old, and based on the size of the limb bones, it was determined that they were the bones of a fully developed adult. Zama City held a cultural relics protection committee meeting on the basis of soliciting the opinions of relevant county departments, and decided to hand over the investigation task to Shukokan University and form the "Zama City Cross-excavation Project" headed by Akima Kanai of the University's Archeology Department. The Type Ancient Tomb Group Investigation Team” is responsible for the specific implementation. The excavation survey started on May 13, 198X and lasted for six days.In order to alleviate the uneasiness of landowners and local residents, the head of a nearby shrine was asked to pray for disaster relief on the day of the investigation. So far, it has been confirmed that there are many horizontal-cut graves buried in Kanagawa Prefecture.Most of the horizontal graves are located in Ninomiya Town, Oiso Town, hilly areas centered on Hiratsuka City, and the Sagami River Basin. Since horizontal tombs were discovered in many places in Zama City, the mouth of Zama City has been attracting people's attention for a long time. According to a survey conducted by the Zama City Education Committee: "There are ten horizontal tomb groups identified, and the number of tombs is fifty, but most of the tombs were discovered by chance, and they all stayed in a limited area. Therefore, the scale of each tomb group and the overall distribution of the tombs are not very clear." Adjacent to the tomb group discovered this time, there is the Xunliban tomb group about 200 meters to the north, and the northern tomb group of Chongfu Temple 1.9 kilometers away. Both of these tomb groups have been excavated.In addition, there are the Nakahanezawa Tombs at 1.6 kilometers away, and the Takabanzuka Tombs at 2 kilometers away, both of which are located on the slope of the hill. On the slope of the river beach about 2.2 kilometers to the west, the group of tombs is even more distributed in the shape of a "residential district", and the slope of the slope is dotted with tombs. Generally speaking, the sealing part at the entrance of the horizontal tomb will be damaged to varying degrees due to the passage of time, allowing silt to flow into it.Therefore, the excavation work generally begins with the removal of silt, and the number of days required for the investigation can be calculated according to the amount of silt.It can be said that most of the excavation and investigation work of archaeologists is physical work dealing with earthwork. Nevertheless, the students were full of exuberant curiosity.Rather than saying that they have a studious heart, it is better to say that they have a dream, that one day they will dig out the imperial tomb buried under the pyramid like the one seen in the movie.They dug in the excitement of uncovering the remains of emperors and splendid treasures. So, once nothing was dug up, their enthusiasm would plummet. As the investigation progressed, it was finally found that there was a horizontal tomb 10.8 meters north of the horizontal tomb discovered by Masao Oki and a further 5 meters to the north.For the convenience of investigation, according to their respective positions, they are named as Tomb No. 1, Tomb No. 2 and Tomb No. 3 from the north. The earliest discovered tomb No. 3 was built in a hard soil layer, consisting of a tomb door (entrance), a tomb passage (the passage from the tomb door to the tomb chamber), and a tomb chamber (coffin chamber).Most of the tomb door and the tomb passage have been destroyed by bulldozers. The remaining part of the tomb is 7.8 meters long from the inner wall to the entrance. It is shaped like a badminton racket with a big inside and a small outside. 30 centimeters, the tomb chamber is 1.61 meters high and 1,95 meters wide.On the walls on both sides, there are chisel marks ranging in width from 9 to 14 cm, which are presumed to be chisel marks from the handle of a hoe. Since the human bones were moved out at the same time as the tomb was discovered, the exact location at that time cannot be restored. According to the descriptions of the discoverer and the mover, it can be inferred that the placement position is the skull, teeth, and limb bones from the north side of the coffin base. and pelvis. After further careful investigation, several more teeth, six fragments of bone and some bone meal were recovered. Because of the new discovery, the students suddenly became energetic and chattered non-stop. "Teacher, I think of the plot in the mystery novel." A student named Osaki came over.Kanai knew he was a fan of mystery novels. "Oh, what plot?" Kanai asked while observing the coffin with a flashlight. "If a corpse is hidden in an ancient tomb and turned into a pile of white bones, who knows if it is old bone or new bone? Could this be a trick deliberately played by someone to hide the corpse?" Osaki looked at Kanai proudly. "Well, if it turns into a pile of bones, what you said may be true." Seeing Kanai's affirmative answer, Osaki looked even more proud. "Maybe I can write a mystery novel on this subject." "The problem is that this is an undiscovered ancient tomb, and the murderer must have known of its existence in advance." Jinjing turned and poured a basin of cold water. "That kind of possibility is not impossible! It has been confirmed that there are many ancient tombs in this area, and there must be undiscovered ones. It is also possible that only the murderer knows of its existence." "Well, you're right. Even if the murderer doesn't know it's an ancient tomb." Jin Jing looked away from the coffin seat and looked upwards.The light from the entrance of the cave could not fully penetrate into the tomb, and the tomb was shrouded in darkness.If the tomb was only used to hide the dead body, then Osaki's said murderer's trick of mixing the dead body with the bones in the ancient tomb is nothing more than an accidental coincidence. "If the murderer doesn't know that this is an ancient tomb, it's meaningless." Osaki said as if discouraged.As a mystery fan, chance coincidences are the least attractive. "But if he knows that this is an ancient tomb, he may report it. Then the cultural relics department will conduct an investigation, and if it has preservation value, it will be properly managed." "It's really hard to explain." "But it is indeed a good way to mix the corpses in the ancient tomb." "Is there no good way, teacher?" "Hey, I don't know how to write mystery novels!" Jin Jing smiled wryly, but in his heart he felt admiration and approval for the idea of ​​this mystery fan. Even if human bones are discovered during the excavation, archaeologists are not obliged to call the police. Even if they are the remains of a murder, it is difficult for archaeologists to distinguish.If archaeologists regard the remains of the murder as the original remains in the ancient tomb, then the remains of the victim can only come from the darkness and return to the darkness in the end. Even if the police were called, if archaeologists believed that this was an ancient corpse over a thousand years old, the police would not require the intervention of a forensic doctor.Only corpses less than a hundred years old will be included in the search.Ancient human bones are also not sent to biologists and forensic scientists for bone reconstruction. Skeletal restoration is a difficult job for experts.A person has fifty hand bones on each side, fifty-two foot bones, twenty-four ribs, and twenty-five vertebrae on the upper and lower sides. It is very difficult for archaeologists to restore these broken bones. If there is nothing you can do, if several bones are mixed together, you will be even more helpless. Starting from the skull and limb bones, the investigative team is concentrating on counting the skeletons. "Hey, it's time to eat." Jin Jing greeted the students. The excavation survey was carried out regardless of day and night, and the excavation team had no concept of time.When they crawled out of the hole, they were dazzled by the bright sunlight outside.