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『東洋文庫所蔵』貴重書デジタルアーカイブ

180   THE ARCHEOLOGICAL EXCAVATIONS IN ANAU.

But we shall attach less significance to the burial custom the less we are inclined to ascribe an ethnical origin to burial in the contracted position. In Europe we find

the custom of burying the dead in the so-called contracted position practised

principally in neolithic, but in widely separated regions into the early bronze age as well.* An enumeration of the localities of such finds is unnecessary. I refer

to Colini's compilation (Bulletino di paletnol. ital., xxiv, pp. 240 ff., note loo). To this may be added the remarkable groups of finds in the sphere of lEgean culture. Burials in contracted position, belonging to both the stone and early bronze ages, have been found, not only in the islands of the lEgean Sea (Ephemeris Archaeologike, 1898, pp. 137 ff.; 1899, pp. 73 ff.) but also on the Grecian mainland (Orchomenos). Indeed, a burial in the contracted position (liegender Hocker) has been lately found even in the sphere of Mycenean culture in a tumulus of Orchomenos (Mitteilungen des kais. deutschen archaeologischen Instituts zu Athen, 1905, pp. 130 ff.). Outside of Europe, burials in contracted position are known in Egypt in the necropoli of the oldest dynasties (cf. De Morgan, Rech. sur les origines de

l'ggypte, 1897, pp. 132 ff.). It is perhaps worthy of especial remark that there is evidence of this custom in a relatively late epoch in the Caucasus. In the necropolis

of Koban, on the north side of the range, burials in a contracted position were found

in many of the graves, though not in all of them (R. Virchow, d. Graeberfeld von Koban, p. 13; E. Chantre, Rech. anthrop. dans le Caucase, ii, pp. 25 ff.). Accord-

ing to the objects found in the graves this necropolis belongs to the early iron age,

therefore to the I millennium B. C. We have here, then, a region that in finds approaches nearest to Transcaspia. Nevertheless, one must beware of drawing

important conclusions from this fact unless closer cultural connections can be

deduced from other circumstances. At the present time we are only justified in saying that in three probably successive, prehistoric culture periods of remote

antiquity in Transcaspia there was a burial custom which was widely practised in Europe, from east to west and from north to south, during the late neolithic and early bronze ages.

Now it is a very striking and remarkable fact that the burials found within the dwelling-places of Anau contain, as a rule, skeletons of children only. I know

of nothing analogous in the history of European cultures. On the other hand,

I find in Sellin's report on his excavations at Tell Ta'aneek in Palestine similar observations (Denkschrift d. Wien Akad. d. Wissensch. Phil. Hist., Bd. 5o, 1904,

pp. 32 ff.). There were found at several points on the hill, "under or close to

the houses and in or near pots, burials of children not over 2 years of age, half of them indeed newly born ; in one instance the body was clearly that of an adult. "

Sellin places the beginning of this custom (pp. 96 ff.) at an early period of the settlement of the hill in the layer i b (about 1600 to 1300 B. C.). It lasted through layer 2a and extends even into the layer 2b (about i000 to Boo B. C.). It ceased during the time of the Greek influence (in the eighth to the seventh century B. c.).

*In the Picentan necropoli of Italy (Novilara group), it extends till into the iron age, i e., about into eighth to seventh centuries B. c.