MAN FROM THE FARTHEST PAST 
else too cold and desolate for human habitation, became 
pleasant, fruitful, and inviting. Not only the Desert of 
Sahara, but also the deserts of Arabia and Persia were 
then fertile and able to support considerable populations. 
The country later known as Babylonia at that time lay 
largely under water, the Persian Gulf running much far- 
ther up into the land than it does now. As the climate 
grew warmer, the two great rivers, the Euphrates and the 
Tigris, began to carry down mud from the slopes of the 
mountain masses to the north and northeast, and to de- 
posit it as silt or sediment at their mouths, gradually 
building up the great alluvial plains later occupied by so 
many important peoples. This process has continued 
steadily down to the present, and the sites of several cities 
which we know were once on or near the water have been 
left far inland within historical times. 
So far, in addition to the primitive Negroid hunters, of 
whom we can conjecture little more than the mere ex- 
istence, we can distinguish three main groups among the 
peoples who in turn occupied ancient Babylonia. The 
first is that known, through one very characteristic type of 
remains found on their ancient sites, as the Painted Pottery 
People. They probably had some domestic animals, and 
they did a certain amount of planting; but they seem to 
have depended for their food chiefly upon hunting and to 
have made large use of the bow and arrow. They knew 
copper, at least, and so had already left the New Stone 
Age behind, though probably not very long before. It 
is thought that these Painted Pottery People entered 
Babylonia from the northeast, probably from the Persian 
uplands. What became of them we can not as yet say 
with any assurance; but they were most likely, in part at 
least absorbed by the Sumerians, the people who next 
appear on the scene. 
Some have thought that the Sumerians reached their 
historic home by migration from central Asia. In the past 
few years, however, there has come to light in northwestern 
[ 302 ] 
