September 29, 1916] 



SCIENCE 



449 



tion of the City God of Lagash. 10 It is 

 hardly necessary to insist on the later in- 

 debtedness of our civilization to this cul- 

 ture in its Semitized shape, as passed on, 

 together with other more purely Semitic 

 elements, to the Mediterranean world 

 through Syria, Canaan and Phoenicia, or 

 by way of Assyria, and by means of the 

 increasing hold gained on the old Hittite 

 region of Anatolia. 



Even beyond the ancient Mesopotamian 

 region which was the focus of these influ- 

 ences, the researches of De Morgan, Gau- 

 tier and Lampre, of the French "Delega- 

 tion en Perse," have opened up another 

 independent field, revealing a nascent civ- 

 ilization equally ancient, of which Elam — 

 the later Susiana — was the center. Still fur- 

 ther afield, moreover — some three hundred 

 miles east of the Caspian — the interesting 

 investigations of the Pumpelly Expedition 

 in the mounds of Anau, near Ashkabad in 

 southern Turkestan, have brought to light 

 a parallel and related culture. The painted 

 Neolithic sherds of Anau, with their geo- 

 metrical decoration, similar to contempo- 

 rary ware of Elam, have suggested wide 

 comparisons with the painted pottery of 

 somewhat later date found in Cappadocia 

 and other parts of Anatolia, as well as in 

 the North Syrian regions. It has, more- 

 over, been reasonably asked whether 

 another class of painted Neolithic fabrics, 

 the traces of which extend across the 

 steppes of southern Russia, and, by way of 

 that ancient zone of migration, to the lower 

 Danube and northern Greece, may not 

 stand in some original relation to the same 

 ancient province. The new discoveries, 

 however, in the mounds of Elam and Anau 

 have at most a bearing on the primitive 

 phase of culture in parts of southeastern 

 Europe that preceded the age when metal 

 was generally in use. 



io See L. W. King, ' ' History of Sumer and 

 Akkad," p. 184. 



Turning to the Nile Valley we are again 

 confronted with an extraordinary revolu- 

 tion in the whole point of view effected 

 during recent years. Thanks mainly to the 

 methodical researches initiated by Flind- 

 ers Petrie, we are able to look back beyond 

 the Dynasties to the very beginnings of 

 Egyptian civilization. Already by the 

 closing phase of the Neolithic and by the 

 days of the first incipient use of metals the 

 indigenous population had attained an ex- 

 traordinarily high level. If, on the one 

 hand, it displays Libyan connections, on 

 the other, we already note the evidences of 

 commercial intercourse with the Red Sea; 

 and the constant appearance of large row- 

 ing vessels in the figured designs shows that 

 the Nile itself was extensively used for 

 navigation. Flint-working was carried to 

 unrivalled perfection, and special artistic 

 refinement was displayed in the manufac- 

 ture of vessels of variegated breccia and 

 other stones. The antecedent stages of 

 many Egyptian hieroglyphs are already 

 traceable, and the cult of Egyptian divini- 

 ties, like Min, was already practised. 

 Whatever ethnic change may have marked 

 the establishment of Pharaonic rule, here, 

 too, the salient features of the old indige- 

 nous culture were taken over by the new 

 regime. This early dynastic period itself 

 has also received entirely new illustration 

 from the same researches, and the fresh- 

 ness and force of its artistic works in many 

 respects outshine anything produced in the 

 later course of Egyptian history. 



The continuity of human tradition, as a 

 whole, in areas geographically connected 

 like Eurafrica, on the one side, and Eu- 

 rasia, on the other, has been here postu- 

 lated. Since, as we have seen, the Late 

 Palaeolithic culture was not violently ex- 

 tinguished but shows signs of survival, 

 both north and south, we are entitled to 

 trace elements of direct derivation from 

 this source among the inherited acquire- 



