282 CARNEGIE INSTITUTION 



and southern nations, and accumulating wealth that has made it re- 

 peatedly the prey of invading armies. It has been from remote time 

 the field of contact and contest between the Turanian and Aryan 

 stocks ; but its problems, both physical and archeological, are parts 

 of the greater problem underlying the study of the development of 

 man and his civilization on the great continent and of the environ- 

 ment conditioning that development. 



The many fragmentary peoples surviving in the remote corners 

 and in the protected mountain fastnesses of Asia, preserving differ- 

 ent languages, arts, and customs, indicate a very remote period of 

 racial differentiation, with subsequent long periods for separate de- 

 velopment. They point also to the long periods of unrest and bat- 

 tling in which the survivors of the vanquished were forced into their 

 present refuges. And this unrest was probably the remote prototype 

 of that which in later prehistoric and historic time sent out its 

 waves from the Aralo-Caspian basin. It was probably from the be- 

 ginning a condition in which the slowly progressive change toward 

 aridity in interior Asia was ever forcing emigration outward, dis- 

 placing other peoples, and thus working against the establishment 

 of a stable equilibrium of population. 



Asia is thus the field for applying all the comparative sciences that 

 relate to the history of man. The materials lie in cave deposits, in 

 rock pictographs, in tumuli, dolmens, and ruined towns, in languages, 

 customs, religions, design patterns, and anthropological measure- 

 ments. 



Turkestan, from its geographical position, must have been the 

 stage on which the drama of Asiatic life was epitomized through 

 all these ages of ferment. Races and civilizations appeared and 

 disappeared, leaving their records buried in ashes and earth ; but 

 the fertility of the soil produced wealth, and the position kept it 

 ever a commercial center. 



So far as our problems of archeology and physical geography are 

 concerned, Turkestan is practically a virgin field. In geology and 

 cartography the Russians have done a surprising amount of excel- 

 lent work ; but the modern methods of physico-geographic study 

 have not been applied, and the little archeological work done has 

 been in the nature of hunting for curios and treasure. Throughout 

 southern Siberia tumuli have yielded up vast treasures in the form 

 of gold ornaments dating from various epochs. Scientific excavation 

 has been undertaken only in southern Russia, in the Caucasus, and 

 in Persia. 



