POTTERY FROM CULTURE II, NORTH KURGAN. 137 
If, now, we compare the pottery of the upper strata with the older pottery 
from the middle and lower |strata, we find a complete revolution in custom and 
taste. The sharper such contrasts appear the more the question arises: Was 
the evident revolution a sudden one, and is the contrast absolute? Were there 
lines of connection between the older and younger cultures? Was the revolution 
accomplished gradually, technique and forms changing with the change in 
taste? These questions are all the more important for the reason that on their 
solution depends another question: Does the appearance of a new pottery 
signify a new settlement? Was the new pottery brought by a new people 
who took possession 
of the place after the 
disappearance of the af 
formerinhabitants and | 
their culture? It is 
not possible to answer 
these questions wholly 
satisfactorily from the 
material thus far ob- 
tained, but I have 
already remarked that 
as regards technique 
and ornamentation it 
is possible to speak of 
points of contact and 
relations between the 
older and the younger 
pottery. More can be 
said when the strata 
of the North Kurgan, 
particularly the upper 
ones, shall have been 
opened up to a greater 
extent. 
132 133 137 

138 139 135 
POTTERY FROM THE SOUTH KURGAN. 
MIDDLE STRATA, CULTURE III. 
The South Kurgan was investigated on a different plan from that pursued 
in the case of the North Kurgan, but with similar limitations as to area of excava- 
tion in the deeper strata. Here too, then, we obtain in the study of the middle 
strata a good point of view from which to judge the upper and the lower strata. 
The middle strata extends from a horizontal line drawn between +40 feet and 
+37 feet downward to the level of +18 feet, to which terraces B and C were sunk. 
As already remarked, in these deposits of not less than 20 feet thickness, similar 
objects were found; therefore they belong to one and the same culture epoch, 
