3] It is therefore apparent that at an extremely remote
period a knowledge of agriculture extended throughout Egypt, and we
have no reason for supposing that it was not shared by the
contemporary inhabitants of Sumer.

The various theories which have been propounded regarding the outside
source of Sumerian culture are based on the assumption that it
commenced abruptly and full grown. Its rude beginnings cannot be
traced on the banks of the Tigris and Euphrates, but although no
specimens of the earliest form of picture writing have been recovered
from the ruins of Sumerian and Akkadian cities, neither have any been
found elsewhere. The possibility remains, therefore, that early
Babylonian culture was indigenous. "A great deal of ingenuity has been
displayed by many scholars", says Professor Elliot Smith, "with the
object of bringing these Sumerians from somewhere else as immigrants
into Sumer; but no reasons have been advanced to show that they had
not been settled at the head of the Persian Gulf for long generations
before they first appeared on the stage of history. The argument that
no early remains have been found is futile, not only because such a
country as Sumer is no more favourable to the preservation of such
evidence than is the Delta of the Nile, but also upon the more general
grounds that negative statements of this sort cannot be assigned a
positive evidence for an immigration."[14] This distinguished
ethnologist is frankly of opinion that the Sumerians were the
congeners of the pre-Dynastic Egyptians of the Mediterranean or Brown
race, the eastern branch of which reaches to India and the western to
the British Isles and Ireland. In the same ancient family are included
the Arabs, whose physical characteristics distinguish them from the
Semites of Jewish type.

Some light may be thrown on the Sumerian problem by giving
consideration to the present-day racial complexion of Western Asia.
The importance of evidence of this character has been emphasized
elsewhere. In Egypt, for instance, Dr. C.S. Myers has ascertained that
the modern peasants have skull forms which are identical with those of
their pre-Dynastic ancestors. Mr. Hawes has also demonstrated that the
ancient inhabitants of Crete are still represented on that famous
island. But even more remarkable is the fact that the distinctive
racial type which occupied the Palaeolithic caves of the Dordogne
valley in France continues to survive in their vicinity