REPORT OF EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE. 75 



SPECIAI. GRANTS. 



TRANS-CASPIAN ARCHEOLOGICAL EXPEDITION. 

 (Raphael Pumpelly, Newport, R. I., in charge. |i8,ooo.) 



In Year Book No. 2, pages 271-287, there is a brief report of 

 Prof. Raphael Pumpelly' s first expedition to the Trans-Caspian 

 region. The second expedition was for the purpose of archeological 

 investigations in special areas noted on the first expedition. The 

 following report is an indication of the character of the results 

 obtained. The final report will be prepared as soon as practicable. 



Professor Pumpelly left America in December, 1903. A week was 

 passed in Berlin, where he engaged as archeologist Dr. Hubert 

 Schmidt, of the Museum fiir Volkerkunde. Dr. Schmidt had ex- 

 cavated at Troy under Dorpfeld, and is an expert in prehistoric 

 pottery. A month was passed in St. Petersburg in getting permis- 

 sion to excavate in Turkestan. 



On the 24th of March work was begun at Anau, near Askhabad. 



The members of the party were Dr. Hubert Schmidt, archeolo- 

 gist ; Ellsworth Huntington, R. W. Pumpelly ; Langdon Warner, 

 Hildegard Brooks, Homer Kidder, volunteer assistants. 



Professor Pumpellj^ chose Anau for beginning because in 1903 he 

 had seen in a cut in one of the tumuli painted hand-made pottery 

 and an abundance of bones. Its structure convinced him that it had 

 been a site of very ancient and long-continued occupation, and he 

 hoped that its bones might throw some light on the source of our 

 domestic animals. 



The excavations in these tumuli and several shafts sunk in the city 

 of Anau traversed over 170 feet of the accumulations of successive 

 generations of peoples and extended from recent times down through 

 the iron and bronze civilizations 45 feet deep into the stone age. 

 One tumulus, wdth now 60 feet of accumulation, was abandoned 

 before the other was begun, and this younger one grew to a height 

 of over 70 feet, after which the neighboring city was founded, and 

 has now about 38 feet of accumulation. The time gaps between the 

 two tumuli and between the younger one and the cit)^ are, of course, 

 unknown quantities. 



In the northern older tumulus the pottery is all hand-made, much 

 of it with painted decorations ; the lower 45 feet of culture-strata (or 

 earth and refuse residuum of long-continued occupation) shows a 

 culture with little or no knowledge of metals. Knives and domestic 



