We know of several such nuclear areas. In the New World, Middle America and the Andean highlands make up one or two; it is my understanding that the evidence is not yet clear as to which. There seems to have been a nuclear area somewhere in southeastern Asia, in the Malay peninsula or Burma perhaps, connected with the early cultivation of taro, breadfruit, the banana and the mango. Possibly the cultivation of rice and the domestication of the chicken and of zebu cattle and the water buffalo belong to this southeast Asiatic nuclear area. We know relatively little about it archeologically, as yet. The nuclear area which was the scene of the earliest experiment in effective food-production was in western Asia. Since I know it best, I shall use it as my example. THE NUCLEAR NEAR EAST The nuclear area of western Asia is naturally the one of greatest interest to people of the western cultural tradition. Our cultural heritage began within it. The area itself is the region of the hilly flanks of rain-watered grass-land which build up to the high mountain ridges of Iran, Iraq, Turkey, Syria, and Palestine. The map on page 125 indicates the region. If you have a good atlas, try to locate the zone which surrounds the drainage basin of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers at elevations of from approximately 2,000 to 5,000 feet. The lower alluvial land of the Tigris-Euphrates basin itself has very little rainfall. Some years ago Professor James Henry Breasted called the alluvial lands of the Tigris-Euphrates a part of the “fertile crescent.” These alluvial lands are very fertile if irrigated. Breasted was most interested in the oriental civilizations of conventional ancient history, and irrigation had been discovered before they appeared. The country of hilly flanks above Breasted’s crescent receives from 10 to 20 or more inches of winter rainfall each year, which is about what Kansas has. Above the hilly-flanks zone tower the peaks and ridges of the Lebanon-Amanus chain bordering the coast-line from Palestine to Turkey, the Taurus Mountains of southern Turkey, and the Zagros range of the Iraq-Iran borderland. This rugged mountain frame for our hilly-flanks zone rises to some magnificent alpine scenery, with peaks of from ten to fifteen thousand feet in elevation. There are several gaps in the Mediterranean coastal portion of the frame, through which the winter’s rain-bearing winds from the sea may break so as to carry rain to the foothills of the Taurus and the Zagros. The picture I hope you will have from this description is that of an intermediate hilly-flanks zone lying between two regions of extremes. The lower Tigris-Euphrates basin land is low and far too dry and hot for agriculture based on rainfall alone; to the south and southwest, it merges directly into the great desert of Arabia. The mountains which lie above the hilly-flanks zone are much too high and rugged to have encouraged farmers. THE NATURAL ENVIRONMENT OF THE NUCLEAR NEAR EAST