THE SUPPOSED BIRTHPLACE OF 

 CIVILIZATIONS 



IT can be stated without exaggeration 

 that in central Asia, particularly in 

 Russian Turkestan, there are hun- 

 dreds, perhapsthousands, of square miles 

 of buried towns and cities. What pro- 

 cesses of nature converted the region 

 from a Garden of Eden, filled with mil- 

 lions of prosperous and wealthy people, 

 into waterless wastes, inhabited only by 

 nomads, are mysteries, to solve which 

 little attempt has been made until re- 

 cently. 



Mr Raphael Pumpelly, known so 

 widely for his work in China, suggested 

 to the Carnegie Institution in 1902 that 

 an examination of the Turkestan ruins 

 might ( 1 ) reveal the birthplace of civil- 

 ization, (2) show how changes in man's 

 environment alter man himself, and (3) 

 give a clue to recent geological time, 

 which is now more or less told by guess- 

 ing. Inasmuch as geological changes 

 have occurred in central Asia since man 

 has lived there, evidence maybe discov- 

 ered among the traces left by the earlier 

 inhabitants which will tell how long 

 these changes were in the making. 



The Carnegie Institution gave Mr 



Pumpelly a grant sufficient to enable 

 him to make an extended reconnaissance 

 of Turkestan. Mr Pumpelly was accom- 

 panied by Prof. William M. Davis, of 

 Harvard University, and Mr Ellsworth 

 Huntington. The results have just 

 been published in a special volume by the 

 Carnegie Institution.* In view of the 

 exceeding importance of the investiga- 

 tion, we make the following liberal 

 quotations from Mr Pumpelly's report: 

 The investigation was proposed be- 

 cause (1) there is a school that still 

 holds the belief that central Asia is the 

 region in which the great civilizations 

 of the Far East and of the West had 

 their origin ; and (2) because of the 

 supposed occurrence in that region, in 

 prehistoric times, of great changes of 

 climate, resulting in the formation and 

 recession of an extensive Asian Medi- 

 terranean, of which the Aral, Caspian, 

 and Black seas are the principal rem- 

 nants. 



* Explorations in Turkestan, by Raphael 

 Pumpelly, William M. Davis, and Ellsworth 

 Huntington, with 174 illustrations and maps. 

 Pp. 325, 9 x 12 inches. Washington, Carnegia 

 Institution, 1905. 



Paikent, a Sand -buried City 



The ruins of Paikent represent the type of cities abandoned for lack of water and then buried 

 by the progressive desert sands. Paikent was a great center of wealth and of commerce between 

 China and the west and south till in the early centuries of our era. The recessions of the lower 

 ends of the Zerafshan River brought its doom. Now only the citadel mound and the top of parts 

 •of its walls rise above the waves of the invading sands. 



