National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
Digital Archive of Toyo Bunko Rare Books

kiang in historical times has never been the seat either of really strong states of sedentary culture or of great nomad hordes. Its main importance has instead been its position as a transit region through which migrations have swept, where trade has flourished and where the spread of some of the great religions has manifested itself.

On the other hand only a trifling part of this large province has been reconnoitred. Only a couple of the important oases, where settled life has probably existed since the introduction of agriculture, has been surveyed. TEILHARD's discoveries at Aqsu would seem to indicate the existence of apparently neolithic remains outside the area of present cultivation. We therefore await with utmost interest the results obtained by the next archaeological expedition with prehistory on its programme which goes to this far-away part of the world, so difficult to approach. In this connection the description of the localities found by me may be of some guidance.

In a future publication on the archaeological material from western Kansu and Inner Mongolia I hope to deal again, and more extensively, with the question of painted chalcolithic pottery.

3. SITES WITHOUT PAINTED POTTERY.

Besides the three places which yielded some painted pottery fragments there are other prehistoric sites characterized by the worked flints. In those cases where these flint artifacts occur together with potsherds the potsherds are unpainted.

Firstly I will mention a place at Ch'ai-o-p'u in T'ien-shan, secondly a dwelling site at Singer in Quruq-tagh, thirdly the Lop-nor finds, and lastly a place in Astintagh in the Charchan region.

A. CH'AI-O-P'U.

Along the main road from Turfan to Urumchi there is a small village to the west of Davan-ch'eng called Ch'ai-o-p'u. It is situated in the middle of the inter-montane plain bordered on the north by the mighty snow-peaks of Bogdo-ola. One or two kilometres to the east of the village, and close to the north of the road, a few worked flints were picked up from the ground. There are five small cores, three diminutive flakes and a small scraper. One of the cores has an edge shaped as a scraper.

These flints, insignificant as they may appear, could as well have been found in the Gobi desert, where this kind of small, neatly worked flints is very common.

B. SINGER.

Singer is at present the easternmost permanent settlement in Quruq-tagh. It is occupied by a couple of Turkish families. On April 13th 1928 I discovered pre-

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