Dr. Roder drove us to the site (Fig. 6), Batpalathang, on Monday 5^th of April, short before noon. An impression of intense activity arose from the building site of the new RNR research center. Tens of Bengali workers were busily achieving different tasks under the auspice of a few Bhutanese foremen, and under the main direction of Mr. Pradhan, the engineer in charge of all the workers.

Mr. Roder and Mr. Pradhan introduced us to the foremen and then guided us through the locations of the four planned buildings (Fig. 7). Two of them are under construction and terracing work had been achieved on the location of the two other. Overall, the area encompassing the planned buildings is extending about 135 x 65 m.

The surroundings, in which some of the archaeological remains are to be seen on the ground, is a flat alluvial terrace lying about 70m over the bottom of the valley in which runs the Bhumtang chu ⁹ (about 2650m a.s.l.). This terrace is the highest of a group of three (10m, 40m and 70m) (Fig. 6). All three are of alluvial origin.

The terrace mass consists of an up to 10m accumulation of rounded alluvial crystalline stone boulders (Fig. 8). Those are densely distributed in a sandy matrix. The sedimentary deposit overlying the alluvial layer is a varyingly thick mass of fine reddish sandy loam. In some part of the building site, this layer had been cut in deeply, showing a thickness of at least 2.5m. It is free of stones and it is thought to be of aeolian (wind blown) origin, possibly dating from the late Holocene (ca. 4000-2000 BP) (Gratzer and Rai 1997, in: Bhutan Soil Survey Project 1998: 10). In fact, the site is still very windy and shows a tendency to strong anabatic winds up the valley in the later parts of many days. Its location in one of the main North-South river valleys is the cause of this windy character (Ibid.: 9). Over this loess ¹⁰ deposit, the recent topsoil and active humus layer shows a thickness of about 20‑40cm. The average altitude of the 70m terrace is about 2750m a.s.l.

The toponym Batpalathang derives from "the place where the Tibetans were defeated". This transliteration is apparently known from many people in the Jakar area.  Of course, this signification gave rise to a fair amount of hypotheses concerning the function of the freshly discovered stone structures, especially in the team working on the construction site. At a less informed level, people from the village of Jakar and from its vicinity developed theories about buried treasures.

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