70 MIGRATIONS.
have been, there can be little doubt that the long-headed people were located there in isolation from the rest of the world since preglacial, or at least since early interglacial, time.
As I have stated in chapter III, this conclusion follows necessarily from the total absence, during the first two cultures at Anau, of all traces of stone arrow-points and spear-heads and celts, although they made from flint well-formed flakes, apparently for the cutting edge of sickles, and fashioned from stone mace-heads and slingstones and vessels of alabaster. Arrow-points, spear-heads, and axes of stone abounded during the last interglacial epoch from the Dnieper to the Atlantic and throughout Northern Africa; and it is not conceivable that, if the ancestors of the Anau long-heads had ever possessed this important acquirement, they would have lost or abandoned it before they were able to replace it with metals. This isolation, as already stated, was caused by the glacial period, during which a large inland sea, formed by the waters from the ice-cap that covered Russia and from the glaciers of the Caucasus, Hindu-Kush, Tian Shan and Altai Mountains, cut off communication with Europe. At the same time the glacier-covered mountains of Armenia, of the Elburz, and of the lofty Zagros ranges, second in height only to the Hindu-Kush, intercepted intercourse with Asia Minor. I would therefore consider the area of isolation to have included the Iranian Plateau from the Zagros ranges on the west to the then impassable glacier-covered Hindu-Kush on the east; and the Transcaspian plains from the Inland Sea on the west to the then also impassable Tian Shan on the east. The Inland Sea, according to the observations of Konshin, Muschketoff, and other Russian geologists, extended eastward beyond the Aral, leaving a strip of lowland plains on the south, which, bordering on the Kopet Dagh range, widened out on the east, to connect with the Siberian steppes, then probably tundra-covered.
Excepting the connection with the Siberian steppes, there were only three points by which this area of isolation could be entered by land. In the east the so-called Djungarian Gate may have then as now been open to the plains of Eastern Turkestan and Mongolia. In the extreme southeast communication with India may have been possible along the seacoast. And in the southwest it is possible that the way was open through Susiana to Chaldea and Arabia.
Somewhere within this broad region our long-headed people became isolated while still in that very primitive stage of culture in which the making and use of stone arrow-points and spear-points were still unknown, and here under the spur of necessity they gradually evolved the organized settled life and agriculture of which we find them possessed when they founded the North Kurgan at Anau.
The area thus outlined is both vast and varied in topographic and climatic character, and the isolation might well have been shared by peoples of different primitive stocks. The Iranian Plateau is traversed in the west by very high mountain ranges inclosing extensive high and well-watered valleys, difficult of intercommunication and 3,000 to 7,000 feet above the sea. The central portion consists of great open areas, which, though now extremely desert wastes, must during the glacial period, and for a long time after, have been bordered by grassy plains traversed by large streams. And the northern part—the modern Khor-
IIIFカラー高解像度
