these rival peoples accentuate their contrasting head forms, which at
times may, no doubt, show a tendency towards variation as a result of
the crossment of types. When it is found, therefore, that the
Sumerians, like the Ancient Egyptians, were in the habit of shaving,
their ethnic affinities should be looked for among a naturally
glabrous rather than a heavily-bearded people.

A Central Asiatic source for Sumerian culture has also been urged of
late with much circumstantial detail. It breaks quite fresh and
interesting ground. Recent scientific expeditions in Russian and
Chinese Turkestan have accumulated important archaeological data which
clearly establish that vast areas of desert country were at a remote
period most verdurous and fruitful, and thickly populated by organized
and apparently progressive communities. From these ancient centres of
civilization wholesale migrations must have been impelled from time to
time in consequence of the gradual encroachment of wind-distributed
sand and the increasing shortage of water. At Anau in Russian
Turkestan, where excavations were conducted by the Pumpelly
expedition, abundant traces were found of an archaic and forgotten
civilization reaching back to the Late Stone Age. The pottery is
decorated with geometric designs, and resembles somewhat other
Neolithic specimens found as far apart as Susa, the capital of ancient
Elam, on the borders of Babylonia, Boghaz Köi in Asia Minor, the seat
of Hittite administration, round the Black Sea to the north, and at
points in the southern regions of the Balkan Peninsula. It is
suggested that these various finds are scattered evidences of early
racial drifts from the Central Asian areas which were gradually being
rendered uninhabitable. Among the Copper Age artifacts at Anau are
clay votive statuettes resembling those which were used in Sumeria for
religious purposes. These, however, cannot be held to prove a racial