432 



ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1940 



character that underlay all the great civilizations of antiquity, taken 

 together. 



In the first place, they all arose in one continuous land area — ^the 

 north temperate zone of the Old World. They did so, moreover, al- 

 most simultaneously, speaking in terms of man's long total existence ; 

 though they appeared at times successively later the farther we travel, 

 east or west, from anterior Asia. Again, they were all based on 

 identically the same set of fundamental elements : The knowledge of 



RIVER-VALLEY CIVILIZATIONS 



-OFTHE- 



ANCIENT WORLD 



©Babylonian 

 ©Egyptian 

 ©Indus Valley 

 ©Early Chinese 



9 Use OF Bronze 

 IN Antiquity. 



FiGOEB 1. 



copper or bronze, town building, the use of wheeled vehicles," posses- 

 sion of the conunon domestic animals, the growing of certain cereals, 

 especially wheat, and the idea of writing, in one form or another. No- 

 where else did this group of culture traits occur in similar combination ; 

 in most parts of the world, indeed, they did not appear at all until 

 introduced in recent historical times. 



We may note that the area in question here coincided almost exactly 

 with that portion of the earth's surface known to the ancients, either 

 at first hand or at least by hearsay — the orbis terrarum veteribus notus 

 of most classical atlases. 



This uniformity, moreover, goes far back of recorded time. All 

 through the north temperate zone of the Old World, but nowhere 



' Wheeled vehicles seem to have been developed in western Asia not later than the fourth 

 millennium before our Era ; but they took 2,000 years or more to reach Egypt — an 

 instance of an exceedingly slow dlflfusion rate. 



