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0159 Explorations in Turkestan : Expedition of 1904 : vol.2
Explorations in Turkestan : Expedition of 1904 : vol.2 / Page 159 (Grayscale High Resolution Image)

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doi: 10.20676/00000178
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ORDO ARTIODACTYLA.

357

at a later period. If, therefore, a degeneration and stunting of the wild Sus scrofa had occurred through a domesticated condition, we should have found transitional forms as well as among sheep and cattle.

The occurrence of Sus palustris among the remains of Anau is therefore no surprise, since it was logically easy to conclude, as had already been declared by C. Keller,* that the animal must exist in subfossil condition in Central Asia, since it came at so early a period from Asia into Europe. It is, however, important that the turbary pig does not seem to have been domesticated in Anau itself.

In spite of what has been said, however, there remains the possibility that the turbary breed of pigs, if not domesticated at Anau, may have been formed on some other oasis of Turkestan, since it occurs at such an early period (at —8 feet) at Anau. If we do not carry this hypothesis further, it is because in the first place we find no bones of swine in the lowest layers of the wild animal period, and secondly because an importation of the tame turbary pig from Iran or India remains among the possibilities. It is, however, certain that the turbary pig reached Central Europe with the builders of the pile-dwellings and contemporaneously with the turbary sheep that originated at Anau, since it occurs in the earliest pile-dwellings ; and in this animal also we see proof of the influence that was exerted by the culture of Turkestan on that of Europe.

It is interesting also to compare the lower jaw with that of the European turbary pig (see table on p. 356). Studer, who explained the form of the turbary pig's skull as signifying a wild condition, owing to a freer life, thinks that the weakening of the lower jaw, which appears in the later bronze age in Switzerland, was due to a change in the manner of life to which the animals were subjected.

Our comparison, however, shows that the turbary pig of the Anau kurgan, down to that of the Germans of the Schlossberg and the Romans of Vindonissa, underwent no weakening process.

The measurements of the best of the extremity bones given in the following table need little further explanation. While the dimensions of the scapula, tibia, and ulna agree closely with those of the domestic pigs of the Sus indicus series, as for instance the China, Maori, and Siam pigs, the measurements of humerus, radius, and metatarsus correspond very well with those of the Eurasiatic Sus scrofa I,innæus or the wild Sus vittatus of southern Asia. The actual presence of the Sus scrofa, the Eurasiatic boar, in Turkestan is known ; the larger bones of a wild boar appear only in the higher layers of the North Kurgan. It may also be possible that the Eurasiatic wild boar (Sus scrofa) reached Anau only after the south Asiatic wild boar (Sus vittatus) had disappeared. The exact relations, can not be determined in the absence of fuller data. The best conception would probably be that the neolithic or neolithic Anau-li for a while killed and ate wild pigs. Nevertheless, the wild pig seems to have been very rare. Whether the region was too dry and the forests of the Kopet Dagh offered too little space, or whether the Anau-li found the chase of this animal too difficult, can not be stated, but it is certain that we find the bones of the wild pig only in later strata and very scarce among the enormous quantity of other bones.

*C. Keller, Die Abstammung der aeltesten Haustiere, is, 102.