H.— ANTHROPOLOGY 185 



European cultures are poorer than contemporary Oriental cultures, 

 i.e., civilisation is later in Europe than in the East. To-day, none of 

 these propositions except No. 2 need be treated as ' postulates rather 

 than as conclusions from the results of investigations.' For the excava- 

 tions published during the last five years have provided abundant data 

 by virhich to test the axioms' validity. 



The high absolute antiquity of Oriental civilisation has been very 

 dramatically confirmed by excavations in Mesopotamia and Syria and 

 Anatolia. Opportunities for applying the criteria, already enumerated, 

 to the possibility of diffusion between the Orient and Europe have been 

 multiplied. Discoveries in Anatolia at Ali§ar, Alaca, Kusura, Thermi and 

 Troy have in fact revealed long missing links between Mesopotamia 

 and the ^gean. Heurtley's work in Macedonia, taken in conjunction 

 with the publication of the relics from Vinca, has established the con- 

 tinuity of neolithic culture from the /^gean to the Danube. We no 

 longer have to compare two remote areas separated by an ambiguous 

 tract of unexplored territories, but can survey a continuous province 

 over which cultural phenomena interlock from the Tigris to the Rhine. 

 The opportunities for the diffusion, assumed in axiom 3, can be estimated 

 in the light of the phenomena observed herein. 



The validity of the chronological axiom 4 is to some extent confirmed 

 by the enhanced likelihood of diffusion revealed by the exploration of 

 intermediate regions and by the discovery in Mesopotamia and in 

 Anatolia of an imposing number of the type fossils, long familiar to 

 European prehistorians. But these have turned up in such unexpectedly 

 early contexts that the conclusions Montelius drew from them forty 

 years ago need drastic revision. Only when European chronology has 

 been thus revised, can the earliest cultures of the Orient and Europe, 

 as concretely revealed by the latest excavations, be compared. The 

 result will be to transform the fifth axiom from a postulate into a 

 conclusion. 



Let me first summarise the results of excavations in Hither Asia that 

 tend to establish the first axiom — the antiquity of Oriental culture. 

 The beginning of the historical or Dynastic period in Egypt and Sumer 

 now constitutes a fairly accurately dated horizon. The coincidence of 

 Egyptian and Mesopotamian sources is now close enough to permit of 

 this horizon being dated with general consent about 3100 i 100 B.C. 

 The latest additions to knowledge resulting from Frankfort's masterly 

 operations at Tel Agrab, Tel Asmer and Khafaje, have not only to be 

 mentioned as enhancing the likelihood of diffusion and providing fresh 

 data for European chronology, but intensify our appreciation of the high 

 level of Oriental civilisation and emphasise the long duration of the 

 Early Dynastic Age. The Sin Temple at Khafaje was rebuilt five times. 

 In the same period the Temple of Abu at Tel Asmer underwent four 

 reconstructions. 



And the Early Dynastic period itself was far from the beginning of 

 urban life. In the Tigris-Euphrates delta it is preceded by two periods, 

 termed respectively the Jemdet Nasr and Uruk phases, during which 

 monumental buildings were already being erected. At Erech, below the 

 earliest dynastic temple ruins, the German excavators uncovered the wall 



