FIRST CIVILIZATION—ANEOLITHIC. AI 
The most striking feature of this culture was, however, its part in the domesti- 
cation of the useful animals. In Dr. Duerst’s report which he has written with 
greater conservatism than he has used in conversation and correspondence, the 
reader can follow the chain of investigation of the comparative anatomist and see 
the proof of the domestication through the changes gradually wrought thereby 
in the different animals. He shows that during the earlier centuries, while the 
lower 10 feet of culture-strata were accumulating, these people knew only wild 
animals which they hunted for food. Then came a great change. The mighty 
Bos namadicus, the Asiatic urus, was tamed and converted to their use, then the 
horse, the pig, and successively two distinct breeds from the great-horned mountain 
sheep. I imagine that the taming of these animals may have been rendered rela- 
tively easy by the changing climatic conditions, which forced the remnants of once 
great herds of wild animals into close proximity to the people on the oasis. 

re Recast =2 fa — oases eS = - —— 
Hehe ee fe ee 

Fig. 19.—Turkoman Woman Baking Bread. 
A horizontal red layer at about 35 feet above the base extends through the 
kurgan and undoubtedly records a conflagration. This would seem to show also 
that the houses of that time were thatched; and this would indicate a climate 
that favored a more abundant vegetation than now obtains. The same culture 
continues above this line until it ceases abruptly at 45 feet above the base, and is 
replaced, without transition, by an entirely new population bringing in culture IT. 
There is nothing to show whether the population abandoned the site voluntarily 
or were driven out or exterminated by an enemy. Some skeletons of adults, who 
seem not to have been formally buried, were found at this level, and these may 
be for us the record of a final tragedy. On the other hand, our physiographic 
analysis of the climatic changes shows a proximate coincidence between the ending 
of this culture and an extreme of aridity. 
