366 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1944 
were long a puzzle to archeologists. Knossus, the ornate and learned 
capital of Crete, was destroyed about 1400 B. C., nearly 3,400 years ago, 
but that date was more than 2,000 years after the Sumerians had 
developed a complicated civilization and were filing away its amazing 
records on their durable tablets of clay. 
While culture was spreading outward from its places of origin 
something was brewing in the grasslands of central Eurasia—that vast 
unbroken plain that stretches from the Carpathians to the Altai and 
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A - Early Greeks Cir. 2000 BC : 
B - Hittites 2700 t BC 
C - Hyksos 1730 BC 
D = Indo Aryans go to India 
_Cire 1200 BC 
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FicurE 7.—The question marks suggest the area, limits unknown, from which the 
grassland poured out its surplus sons upon their migrations, so destructive to 
the advanced cultures of the three valleys. (Base map copyright by Rand 
MeNally & Company, Chicago.) 
Tian Shan, and from the Caucasus and the mountain rim of Iran to 
the Great Northern Forest. 
This vast grassland was an inhospitable area for the Stone Age man 
before he had domestic animals. There was grass, of course, on most 
of its extent, and fleet-footed game. But wood and natural shelter 
were scarce except along the mountain and northern forest borders 
and along the banks of the few streams that crossed the plain. The 
patch farming of Stone Age man was largely limited to these spots 
