CHAPTER VII—RESULTS. 
NORTH KURGAN. 
In both the observed finds and the conditions in which they occurred, as well 
as in the general course of investigation of the North Kurgan, we can distinguish 
two great epochs in its formation. Since the remains of their civilizations were 
deposited one above the other, it follows that one must have succeeded the other. 
Their relative age-relation is thus assured. In the terraces of the North Kurgan 
we have become acquainted principally with the younger of these cultures. 
Culture II.—Three, relatively four, successive periods of this culture could be 
determined in the upper layers between +40 and +25 feet. At this time the 
inhabitants of the hill lived in huts or houses built of air-dried bricks. They used 
peculiar bake-ovens like the upper half of a pot, and large kettles on hearths, 
also fireplaces with a central hole; and they had the remarkable custom of burying 
their children inside of their dwellings, immediately adjoining the hearths. In these 
burials the body was generally placed in the so-called contracted or Hocker position. 
The pottery used at this time was the red and gray monochrome (group x). With 
this there were painted vessels, clearly a rarity (groups zand v). The inhabitants 
of the hill built their houses on the deposits of an older culture and in this way 
caused a mixture of their own culture products with those of the older civilization. 
Culture I.—The unmixed older culture layers do not occur, as a rule, except 
below the level of +25 feet. The infallible witnesses to this older culture are 
coarse and fine vessels, which are almost always painted in a peculiar style (group y). 
Wherever vessels of this kind are found 7m situ they are to be considered as the 
remains of the dwellings of the older culture. In terrace m the pithoi were found 
in two layers, one above the other, at the level of +22 feet 5 inches and +20 feet. 
In terrace 111, also, at least two successive layers of the older culture are distin- 
guishable, the upper at +18 feet, the lower at +15 feet. In terraces vi and vir 
traces of the older dwellings are found at still higher levels, 7. e., +25 and +26 
feet respectively. Traces of the remains of buildings of the older culture were 
observed both above and below the datum-plane—~. e., a wall in the west digging 
between +18 feet and +10 feet, one in north diggings I and 1, between — 11 feet 
and —12 feet; and one in the west shaft at the level of —15 feet at the top and 
— 18 feet at the bottom edge. ah 
In the deeper layers as well as in the upper and middle ones, there is an associ- 
ation of walls and pithoi and skeleton graves. Thus north digging 1 also yielded a 
wall, a pile of ashes, and at — 12 feet to — 13 feet an excellently preserved skeleton 
in contracted or inclined Hocker position, while in the shaft of the east gallery 
two skeleton graves were found at — 8 feet. 
12! 
