National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
Digital Archive of Toyo Bunko Rare Books

378   ANIMAL REMAINS FROM THE EXCAVATIONS AT ANAU.

The second race is the fat-tailed sheep (Ovis aries platyura), whose long, limply hanging tail, reaching to the heel joint, is surrounded by a mass of fat, which has, however, no great size. The rams of this race are horned; the ewes for the most part are hornless. The horns of the rams are not very long, nor particularly thick ; they are three-sided, with rounded edges, of which the inner one is always sharper. They rise slightly above the crown of the head and wind sideways and backwards from the root, forming then a simple helical turn down, forwards, and upwards, while the points turn somewhat inwards.

In the neighborhood of Anau the Afghan Maimene breed predominates.

It is a sheep of excellent flesh of large growth. The wool is long and coarse, and the tail long. The animals are in part horned and in part unhorned. In the other parts of Transcaspia the fat-buttocked sheep (Kurdjak breed) predominates.

If now we visualize these forms of sheep, we can express the following ideas concerning the derivation of the hornless sheep of the culture-strata of the copper period of the North Kurgan, though these ideas can be but speculations.

The hornless sheep maybe : (a) a female of the previously occurring form, which we have designated Ovis palustris and whose horns had reduced in size; or, (b) a hornless race introduced from somewhere else with the camel and the goat. The sudden appearance of several hornless frontal pieces argues for the last hypothesis. As we shall see, there appeared another domestic animal at about this time or in

the +32-foot layer—the camel, of which no trace was found in all the earlier layers which have been so carefully searched. At the same time we meet another domestic animal, the goat (Capra hircus riitimeyeri Duerst).

The camel, the hornless sheep and the goat are, however, the animals found in the later South Kurgan, where there are few traces of other sheep.

Table of dimensions (in millimeters).

Superior width.

Width at collum.

Length of articulation.

Diameter of articulation.

Length.

SCAPULA:

North Kurgan, Anau:

• 8 feet   

• 8 feet   

—8 feet   

—7 feet   

• 7 feet   

+ 17 feet   

+19 feet   

+22.5 feet   

+23 feet   

+26 feet   

+26 feet   

+28.5 feet   

+32 feet   

+32 feet   

+32 feet   

+32 feet   

+32 feet   

+32 feet   

+32 feet   

+32 feet   

Ovis aries palustris, Nalps, coll.

Duerst   

171

172

2I

19

17

17

19

18

20

23 2I

16

17

21

20 Iís

24

20

22

17

18

17

20

I IO

115

23 2I

19

19

20

20

19

22

20

22

20

23

22 2I

24

19

25

18

20

20

2I

35

32

27

27

30

38

33

32

32

2!

28

35

35

33

34

31

33

28

29

27

29

1