544 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1937 



communication with Babylonia at a time when the latter had already 

 long known the plow; hence its contemporary use in the valley of 

 the Indus seems at least possible. At all events it was common 

 there in Vedic times ;^^ and it appears to have spread over much if 

 not all of northern India before the middle of the first millennium 

 B.C. 



The ancient Indian plow (fig. 10) reached Burma and southern 

 India in time, and it was carried during the earher centuries of our 

 era to portions of the Indochinese peninsula and to certain of the 

 East Indian islands, notably to Java. The form still used in Bali, 

 with its straight beam and its lack even of a cross-brace, wears an 

 especially archaic look; while the Siamese rice-plow betrays strong 

 Indian affinities. 



In Central Asia not enough archeological work has been done as 

 yet to provide us with any clue as to the date of the first appearance of 

 the traction plow in that region. Forms found there today, how- 

 ever, resemble those used in tlie Near East — a fact which betolcens 

 contacts of some sort. These have, of course, been constant since the 

 period of Muhammadan expansion north and northeast of the Moun- 

 tain Zone. That they were going on far earlier is no less certain. 



Common wheat {Triticum vulgare) and barley (Ilordeum distichum), 

 regarded by most authorities as of southern or southwestern Asiatic 

 origin, have been reported from a site in Russian Turkestan probably 

 of the third millennium B. C' The undivided Indo-Iranians, per- 

 haps once seated in the same general region, knew some form of plow."^ 

 Coming down to Assyrian times, the representation of a two-humped 

 or "Bactrian" camel on the Black Obelisk of Shalmaneser (ninth 

 century B. C.) pretty clearly indicates the existence of relations of 

 some sort with the lands north of the Zagros and the Hindu Kush. 

 The Arimaspem of Aristeas of Proconnesos betrays an intimate 

 knowledge of Central Asia.®' During the latter half of the sixth 

 century B. C, both Cyrus and Darius pushed their conquests far to 

 the northeast. Quite recently there have been found in Chinese 

 Turkestan Greek coins of the third century B. C, from the kingdom of 

 the Bosphorus.®^ Thus all in all it seems evident that so far as oppor- 

 tunities went, the traction plow might have reached Central Asiatic 

 regions at almost any time during the first two millennia and more 

 before our era. 



«' Cambr. Hist. India, vol. 1, p. 99. For additional information on this matter I am indebted to Dr. 

 Franklin Edgerton, of Yale University. 



s9 Pumpelly, Raphael, Explorations in Turkestan, vol. 2, p. 472, 190S. Dr. Hubert Schmidt's dating 

 (idem, vol. 1, p. 486) of the earlier settlements at Anau as being of the third millenium B. C. appears to have 

 received general acceptance. 



M Peake and Fleure, The horse and the sword, p. 138, 1933. That the Indo-Europeans as a whole had the 

 plow prior to their dispersion seems less certain. 



" For a discussion of this question, see Hudson, O. F., Europe and China, 1931. 



" Dlehl, Dr. Erich, Bosporantsche Miinzen aus der Dschungarei, Blatter fur Munzfreunde, 1923, pp. 

 441^49. 



