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

It seemed to me that an examination of the abundant animal bones
seen in the trenched mound in 1903 might prove of value in several respects
and possibly throw some light on European relations. Consequently all
that were found were collected, and each day's findings sacked and duly
labeled as to stratigraphic position. About half a ton of these were for-
warded to Dr. Duerst of Zürich, to whom, as Dr. Schmidt informed me, the
German museums submitted subfossil animal remains for study. As a
comparative anatomist, Dr. Duerst was especially interested in the domestic
animals from the comparative side and from that of their origins. The
results of his exhaustive study of the bones from Anau, to which he devoted
his whole time during nearly three years, and his far-reaching conclusions
are given in the second volume of this publication.

While Dr. Schmidt was conducting the archeological work, an inde-
pendent physiographic investigation was carried on by R. W. Pumpelly
and myself—a search for local geological records of changes in the attitude
of nature toward man. This had long been to me a coordinate part of the
Central Asiatic problem. The reader will see how important were the results
obtained in this study of the operation of geological and climatic forces
during the present epoch as recorded in mountain movements and in alter-
nate aggradation and degradation of the delta-oasis.

Our workmen were the local Turkomans, a people speaking a Turkish
dialect, very near to the Osmanli, but who had become racially much influ-
enced by infusion of Persian blood through mothers captured in raids on to
the Iranian plateau. These Turkomans, before they were with difficulty
conquered by Russia, were the terror of Central Asia. Themselves Sunnite
Mohammedans, they had (besides the feud between Iran and Turan, tra-
ditional from remote time) the fanatical hatred of the Shi-ite Persians. In
swift raids they exterminated Persian villages, saving only women to sell as
slaves in Bokhara and Khiva. Since their subjection they have been peace-
able, and are esteemed by the Russians for their bravery and honesty,
qualities which we, too, had every reason to admire in our workmen. We
paid them from 25 to 40 cents a day for labor that was always well and
persistently performed.

Our work at Anau was stopped by inroads of a vast army of grasshop-
pers, which not only filled our pits faster than they could be removed, but
were spread through the irrigation ditches over the surface of the oasis in
thick masses.

From Anau we moved to Merv, where we hoped to find sites of great
antiquity and to make explorations preliminary to future excavation. The
wasted walls and citadel of Ghiaur Kala (City of the Infidel) seemed the
most promising, but here, while we reached in our pits only down to culture-