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ORDO CARNIVORA.   35I

and the Caucasus. The dog, however, may have come either from the sphere of Indian culture or from Russia; although, according to Studer, a Siberian origin is possible.

On the other hand an Iranian or Indian domestication or an autochthonous origin of the house-dog, shown by the presence in the lowest neolithic layers of the Anau kurgan of Canis pallipes or a similar wolf, might support a very plausible hypothesis based on former philological or archeological researches. This would not apply especially to the domestication of Canis pallipes, but to that of the dingo or another wild dog of Turkestan as well. Perhaps later excavations by Mr. Pumpelly, possibly in strata of a still earlier period, will bring to light the bones of house-dogs; for the fact that none are known from the first period is no proof that they may not be found. It would, in fact, seem almost necessary that the Anau-li should have had, with their great herds of sheep and cattle in æneolithic time, a domestic dog that originated in the same neighborhood.

According to Hommel* the different peoples speaking the Turko-Tartaric languages must have had in common an' autochthonous dog, which was designated by the radical word kuc. Budenzt also calls attention to the original character of this designation and concedes the hypothesis of an autochthonous domestication of the dog in the earliest times of the development of the Altaic culture. Vâmbéry$ also sees an evidence of the high age of Altaic domestication of the dog in the myth of the Kirghiz, who derive themselves from the dog through an unnatural connection with forty maidens.

Not only is the shepherd-dog thought by some to have originated in Iran, but H. Kraemer! and C. Keller! I attempt to derive most of the European mastiffs —at least the Canis molossus of the ancients and the St. Bernard—from Tibet.

Albrecht,!( however, shows from, a large stock of philological data that the Tibetans were not responsible for this domestication but rather the people who lived to the west and south of Tibet ; and that the name of the dog argues against a domestication in Tibet, for in the west it is kukurra, while in Tibet it is khi. Albrecht believes, therefore, in two domestications, one of which produced a large dog (kukurra), in the west, and a, smaller one (khi), in Tibet, which were then exchanged and crossed among the respective peoples.

If, lastly, we would look for the shepherd-dog of the East, which might possibly have been derived from the dog of Anau, we must turn our eyes to where the earliest rays of the light of history penetrate the prehistoric darkness—to Babylon, Assyria, and Egypt.

The Assyrian monuments do not introduce us to more than two varieties of the dog—the large and powerful mastiff, used in the chase of great animals, and the grayhound, used in coursing the hare. Other breeds, however, were

*Die Namen d. Säugetiere bei den suedsemit. Voelkern, p. 4.1.r.

tMagyar-Ugor üsszehasonlito szotar, 188x. p• 74.

$ Die prim. Kultur des turko-tatarischen Volkes, p. 197. Leipzig, 1879.

§Die Haustierfunde von Vindonissa, Revue zoolog., tome 7, pp. 14.3-272; and Die Abstammung des

Bernhardiner. Globus, pp. 171-188, 1904.

Die Abstammung der aeltesten Haustiere, p. 76. Zürich, 1902.

¶Zur aeltesten Geschichte des Hundes, pp. 55-56. München, 1903.