In 1904 Pumpelly[72] made most thorough and careful investigations at Anau, near Askabad in Turkestan, about 300 miles east of the southeast corner of the Caspian Sea, and 200 miles west of Merv. The remarkable results of his work are described in two large volumes, and have not received the attention which they deserve. He excavated in two large Kurgans or mounds. The north Kurgan is the older and chiefly concerns us. The Neolithic remains occur in thin compact strata aggregating some forty-five feet in thickness. The earliest settlement was a town covering at least five acres, possibly nearly ten. At the time of the beginning of the settlement, which Pumpelly estimated as somewhat before 8000 B. C., the inhabitants lived in rectangular houses built of uniform sun-dried bricks. They were skilful potters, though unacquainted with the potter's wheel, making different grades of coarse and fine vessels. These were unglazed, but often painted with a definite series of geometrical patterns. They had the art of spinning, for whorls are found in all strata from the lowest up. They cultivated cereals, for the casts of the chaff of wheat and barley are found in the clay of the thicker pots. At first they had no domestic animals, only the bones of wild forms being found. When ten feet of culture strata had been accumulated the remains of a tame _Bos namadicus_, the Asiatic variety of the _Bos primigenius_, or urus, occurred. That this animal had already been domesticated is inferred from the less compact microscopic structure of the bones modified by artificial conditions. At this time the change of structure, if not complete, was evident. It had been for some time under the new conditions. The turbary pig appears about 7500 B. C.,[73] the turbary sheep about 1500 years later, but preceded by varieties of the great horned mountain sheep. The turbary cattle appear to have been a small variety of the _Bos namadicus_, somewhat dwarfed by drought and hardship. The camel appears at Anau somewhat after 6000 B. C., and seems to be a means of intercourse and transport far antedating the horse, in a region already showing signs of dessication. Spherical mace-heads occur reminding us of those used in Egypt. But no lance-head or arrow-point or other stone weapon was found in the lower levels. We do not know how they killed or captured the larger animals; they may have used the sling or bolero. In the lowest strata we find the bones of young children, but not of adults, buried in a contracted position under the floors of the dwellings. The first objects of copper and lead appear about 6000 B. C., and, open the Æneolithic period. Pumpelly distinguishes a Copper period, here longer and more distinctly marked than in Europe. The turquoise bead found in one of the graves came, in all probability, from the Iranian plateau, as did probably the copper and lead also.