SUCCESSIVE GROWTHS AND DISSECTIONS OF THE PLAIN. PAX 
It is only after understanding these facts that we have been able to explain the reason 
why the regions only a quarter of a mile to the east and west of the axis of this channel 
and its growth were depressions toa depth of about 15 feet when the next cutting-down 
began. These depressions afterwards afforded excellent areas for irrigation and became 
filled with irrigating sediments, so that they are no longer evidenced on the surface. How- 
ever much difficulty there may have been in preventing their stream from permanently 
bursting out to either of these depressions, the people of the South Kurgan had no more 
difficulty after it had begun to reexcavate the little valley, so that although the kurgan 
was soon afterwards abandoned and left unoccupied during the ‘‘period not represented 
by culture-strata,’’ the stream continued there in loneliness unused until the reoccupa- 
tion of the town by the people of the iron culture, who found it refilling the valley with 
sediments. When the founders of Anau City arrived, the valley was only 8 feet deep at 
the South Kurgan and must have been even shallower at the apex of the fan, so that 
there was no difficulty in deflecting the stream to the new city.—R. W. P. 
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Fig. 13.—Odontche Tepe, 80 feet high, on Merv Oasis. 
Peahiner’ 
Hf WN 
a we 

Fig. 14.—Erecting a Kibitka. 
This occurred at about the time that the alluvial growth reached its maxi- 
mum height as shown in shaft B, for this growth stopped at the beginning of irri- 
gation, and irrigation began at about the time of the founding of Anau. It is, 
indeed, not unlikely that a similar diversion of the stream caused the abandon- 
ment of the North Kurgan and the subsequent choice of the site of the South 
Kurgan. 
The fact that a settlement had attained to a height of 50 or 60 feet above 
the plain would perhaps seem to us a reason for choosing a new site, but such does 
not appear to have been a motive in Central Asia. Height was apparently much 
