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Digital Archive of Toyo Bunko Rare Books

CAVICORNIA.

365

There is also a number of humeri, mostly fragments of the middle part without articulation. Only one proximal part and four distal parts are in good condition. The measurements indicate the same important rule—that the bones of the lower layers are much larger in size than those of the higher layers, and that those from +25 feet are approximately of the same size as those of Bos brachyceros.

The same rule is good for the radius, of which we have only four good pieces. We have the distal part, No. I 114, from the —15-foot layer, undoubtedly belonging to a younger specimen of the wild Bos namadicus, as is shown by the dimensions and the heavier and harder composition of the bones. As is proved by several other bones, such as phalanges, the wild animal appears from time to time in the layers near the level of the plain, but still decreasing proportionately in number, and seeming to disappear with the +2o-foot layer.

All metacarpal bones were badly injured; only one has been restored and this shows a close concordance with the Apis of Paris, while another from the + 20-foot layer approaches in size the Bos brachyceros of the Schlossberg.

I must here treat another question. It might seem probable that the smaller bones of the higher layers are those of younger animals of the same kind as the larger. This opinion is certainly true as regards the lower layers, as the smaller bones of these strata show very decided marks of youth; but this is not so. with the smaller bones above + 23 feet. All those which are mentioned in the measurement table are of adult animals. It seems very probable, therefore, that the higher layers contained a smaller breed of cattle which was formed there by the physiographical influence on the climate and on the production of food during the period of aridity at the end of culture period I, or which came into Anau at the same time as the camel, the goat, the hornless sheep, and the shepherd-dog.

But the long-horned larger bovid does not entirely disappear in the metal period* of the kurgan ; several larger extremity bones show his presence among the smaller cattle. Among the phalanges there are in the lower strata several which in size correspond wholly to those of Bos primigenius and which are even considerably larger than those of the Apis of Paris.

The measurements of the femora from the North Kurgan, Anau, agree well, in the measurable dimensions, with those of Bos brachyceros and are considerably smaller than those of the Apis skeleton. The same applies to the tibiæ.

The metatarsi show also, in part, dimensions which indicate a somewhat more slender-limbed cattle than was the Egyptian long-horned cattle.

The measurements of the lower jaws of the first period correspond to those of the extremities and show the same dimensions as those of the family of the recent Bos inacroceros, as is easily seen in the agreement of the few lower-jaw measurements with those of a mummy skull from Abadieh, and of the Hungarian bull of the Hofmuseum of Vienna (plate 81, fig. 2).

*Culture II.—R. P.