Page:The National Geographic Magazine Vol 16 1905.djvu/558

500 From Wm. M. Davis, Carnegie Institution A Sand Dune Advancing Across the Desert

It had long seemed to me that a study of central Asian archeology would probably yield important evidence in the genealogy of the great civilizations and of several at least of the dominant races, and that a parallel study of the traces of physical changes during Quaternary time might show some coincidence between the phases of social evolution and the changes in environment; further, that it might be possible to correlate the physical and human records and thus furnish a contribution to the scale of recent geology.

While we have been surprised at the abundance of the data in natural and artificial records offered by the region toward these solutions, we are impressed with a realization of the intimate relation in which this region stands to the Quaternary and prehistoric history of the whole continent. Physically it forms part of the great interior region extending from the Mediterranean to Manchuria, whose history has been one of porgressive desiccation, but in Russian Turkestan the effects of this have been mitigated by the snows of the lofty ranges and the lower altitude of the plains.

Archeologically this region has, through a long period, been a center of production and commerce, connecting the eastern, western, and southern nations, and its accumulating wealth has made it repeatedly the prey of invading armies. It has been from remote time the field of contact and con-