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0487	Innermost Asia : vol.2
極奥アジア : vol.2

on the site ever since its abandonment, gradually breaking up and carrying off all softer materials.
In time the potsherds and other hard fragments, as well as the gravel contained in bricks and mud
walls, would sink lower and lower as the loose earth originally embedding them was blown away,
and would at last come to lie densely on the surface. Once this stage was attained, the protective
crust formed by hard deposits from different 'culture' layers would prevent further wind-erosion
or at least greatly retard it. It is obvious that a process such as the conditions described clearly
indicate presupposes a very prolonged occupation of the ground. Recognition of this must also
warn us that the pottery remains now found side by side on the surface at this and the other pre-
historic sites are likely to be the products of a ceramic industry extending through centuries. This
conclusion again, combined with the indications furnished by individual small finds, helps us to
realize both the long duration and the comparatively high development of the chalcolithic civiliza-
tion attested by these remains of the desert delta.

It is obvious that at the prehistoric sites surveyed above indications as to the people who once Interest of
lived there and the approximate period of their occupation can be hoped for only from the small pottery
relics that have survived the destructive force of wind-erosion. Among these relics the fragments from chalco-
of pottery are by far the most numerous and instructive. A careful analysis of the materials, lithic sites.
forms, and decorative patterns represented among them will be found in the first part of the general
note prepared by Mr. Andrews on the pottery from Sīstān sites and prefixed to the Descriptive
List in the next section. In a preliminary paper by Mr. Andrews discussing and illustrating the
painted pottery from these prehistoric sites ⁷ due attention has already been called to the particular
interest which attaches to it on account of its unmistakable affinity to the ceramic products of a
chalcolithic culture brought to light by recent discoveries in widely distant parts of Europe and
Asia. This resemblance is emphasized also by Dr. W. Percival Yetts in a short but stimulating
notice published in connexion with the former paper and dealing with the important discoveries
made by Dr. J. G. Anderson of extensive remains of chalcolithic culture in Ho-nan and Kan-su.⁸
The remarkably wide spread of painted pottery with designs closely resembling those to be found
on our Sīstān fragments is brought out in the brief but pregnant remarks which Mr. Hobson has
devoted to the latter in his Appendix D. Reference to the very instructive monograph of Dr. T. J.
Arne, which deals with the painted pottery among Dr. Anderson's finds in Ho-nan, and to
Dr. Anderson's own 'Preliminary Report' on his discoveries in Kan-su, will best illustrate the
extraordinary range covered by the known chain of finds. This now stretches from central China
through Balūchistān, Persia, Mesopotamia, and other parts of the Near East to southern Russia,
Transylvania, and Thessaly.⁹

It would not come within my range to discuss the detailed points of contact which our Sīstān Sīstān link-
painted pottery presents with similar ware from far-off regions of Eurasia. Nor could I discuss ing areas of
here their general bearing on the interesting problems raised as to the origin, spread, and chrono- chalcolithic
logical limits of this chalcolithic civilization, even if the extensive literature relating to all those civilization.
discoveries were at present within my reach. But I may well call attention to geographical con-
siderations that invest our Sīstān finds with special interest, as linking several areas of the same
or closely allied prehistoric culture which are otherwise far separated from each other. I refer

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