RACES AND PEOPLES OF EUROPE.
Problem of European ethnogeny--I. /Ancient inhabitants of
Europe/--_Prehistoric races_--Quaternary period--Glacial and
interglacial periods--Quaternary skulls--Spy and Chancelade races
or types--Races of the neolithic period--Races of the age of
metals--_Aryan question_--Position of the problem--_Migration_ of
European peoples in the _historic period_--II. /European races
of the present day/--Characteristics of the six principal
races and the four secondary races--III. /Present peoples of
Europe/--/A/. _Aryan peoples_: Latins, Germans, Slavs,
Letto-Lithuanians, Celts, Illyro-Hellenes--/B/. _Anaryan
peoples_: Basques, Finns, etc.--/C/. _Caucasian peoples_:
Lesgians, Georgians, etc.
Of all parts of the world Europe presents the most favourable
conditions for the interblending of peoples. Easy of access, a mere
peninsula of Asia, from which the Ural mountains and straits a
few miles wide hardly separate it, Europe has a totally different
configuration from the continental colossus, heavy and vague in
outline, to which it is attached. Indented by numberless gulfs, bays,
and creeks, provided with several secondary peninsulas, crossed by
rivers having no cataracts, and for the most part navigable, it offers
every facility for communication and change of place to ethnic groups.
Thus from the dawn of history, and even from prehistoric times, a
perpetual eddying has taken place there, a coming and going of peoples
in search of fortune and better settlements.
These migrations, combined with innumerable wars and active commerce,
have produced such a blending of races, such successive changes in the
manners and customs and languages spoken, that it is very difficult
to separate from this chaos the elements of European ethnogeny, and
that in spite of the great number of historical and linguistic works
published on the subject. We may, however, thanks to the progress
in prehistoric, anthropological, and ethnographical studies, obtain
a glimpse of the main outlines of this ethnogeny, in which history
and linguistics give us often but vague, and in any case very slight
information.
The better to understand the distribution of races at the present
day, we must cast a glance at those which are extinct, going back to
geological times removed from us by several hundreds or even thousands
of centuries.
I.--ANCIENT INHABITANTS OF EUROPE.
_Geological Times._--The portions of Europe emerging towards the end of
the tertiary period of the geological history of our globe have been
inhabited by man, probably from this very time, and assuredly from the
quaternary period which succeeded it--the predecessor of the present
geological period. The existence of _tertiary man_ in Europe has not,
however, been directly proved. The finds of artificially chipped flints
in the miocene and pliocene beds in France (at Thenay, Puy-Courny, and
Saint-Prest), in England (the uplands of Kent, Cromer), and in Portugal
(Otta, near Lisbon); the discovery made in Italy (Monte Aperto) of
bones with rude carvings on them, asserted to be the work of pliocene
man, and so many other interesting facts, are now called in question
by leading men of science, and have few supporters at the present
day.[337] In every case in these finds we have to deal only with
objects supposed to be worked by man, or by some hypothetical being,
for no remains of human bones have been found up to the present time in
the tertiary beds of Europe.[338]
It is only in quaternary beds that the presence of human bones has
been ascertained beyond question. The _quaternary age_ in Europe is
characterised, as we know, by the succession of “glacial periods,” each
of which comprises a greater or less extension of glaciers, followed by
their withdrawal (“interglacial periods”), with accompanying changes of
climate. The well-known geologist Geikie[339] claims, from the end of
the pliocene age to proto-historic times, the existence in Europe of
six glacial periods; but most other geologists (Penck, Boule) reduce
this number to two or three, considering the movements of the glaciers
of some of Geikie’s periods as purely local phenomena, having exercised
no influence on the continent as a whole.
At the beginning of quaternary times the climate of Europe was not
the same as that of the present day; hot and moist, it was favourable
to the growth of a sub-tropical flora. Dense forests gave shelter
to animals which no longer exist in our latitudes--the _Elephas
meridionalis_, a survival of the pliocene age, the _Rhinoceros
Etruscus_, etc.
But soon, from causes still imperfectly known, ice began to accumulate
around _certain elevated points of Northern Europe_; a veritable “mer
de glace” covered all Scandinavia, almost the whole of Great Britain,
the emerged lands which were between these two countries, as well
as the north of Germany and half of Russia.[340] This is the _first
glacial period_, or the period of the _great spread of glaciers_ (Map
1). Such an accumulation of ice, combined with a change of climate,
which had become cold and moist, was not very favourable to the
peopling of the country. Besides, if we consider that all the great
mountain chains, the Alps, the Pyrenees, the Caucasian range, with
their advanced peaks, were covered entirely with ice, and that the
Aralo-Caspian depression was filled with water as far as the vicinity
of Kazan on the north (Map 1), we shall easily understand that the
habitable space thus available for man at this period in Europe was
very restricted.
[Illustration: /Fig./ 84.--Chellean flint implement, Saint-Acheul
(Somme); half natural size.
(_After G. and A. de Mortillet._)]
France with Belgium, the south of England, the three southern
peninsulas (Iberian, Appenine, and Balkan), the south of Germany,
Austria-Hungary, the plains of Southern Russia as far as the Volga,
and the basin of the Kama, communicating on the south of the Ural by a
narrow isthmus with the Siberian steppes--these were the only countries
which quaternary man could occupy. These conditions only changed at the
time that the glaciers began to withdraw (_first interglacial period_).
The climate became milder again, and the Arctic flora gave place to the
flora of the forests of the Temperate Zone. It is to this period that
the most undoubtedly ancient vestiges of mankind in Europe are to be
attributed.
[Illustration: /Map/ 1.--Europe in the first glacial period. Light
grey, glaciers; medium grey, sea; dark grey, land; white points,
floating ice.
(_After De Geer._)]
The men of that period have handed down to us implements of a very
rude type: fragments of flint of pointed form, the sinuous edges of
which are scarcely trimmed by the removal of some flakes.[341] These
implements are called “knuckle-dusters” (G. de Mortillet), or “Chellean
axes” (Fig. 84), from the Chelles bed in the valley of the Seine; but
such implements are found _in sitû_ in numerous places--in France
(especially in the valley of the Somme), in England (valleys of the
Ouse and the Thames), in Spain, Portugal, Austria, Belgium, etc.[342]
The first interglacial period, characterised, as we have just seen,
by a mild and moist climate, was followed by a new glacier invasion
(_second glacial period_). This time the sea of ice did not extend as
far as in the first period: it covered Ireland, Scotland, the north of
England (as far as Yorkshire), Scandinavia, Finland, and stopped in
Germany and Russia at a line passing nearly through the present site of
Hamburg, Berlin, Warsaw, Vilna, Novgorod, Lake Onega, Archangel.
To this period succeeded, after the withdrawal of the glaciers, a
period called “post-glacial” (or _second interglacial period_),
characterised at first by a continental climate, dry, with a very cold
winter, and a short but hot summer, and by flora of the Tundras and
steppes. At the end of this epoch, the climate becoming milder, there
appeared the flora of the meadows and forests, which has remained
to the present day.[343] The harsh climate of the beginning of
this period could only be favourable to the preservation and growth
of thick-furred animals: the mammoth or elephant with curved tusks
(_Elephas primigenius_), the rhinoceros with divided nostrils (_R.
tichorinus_), the reindeer (_Cervus tarandus_), the saiga, the lemming,
etc.
The man who inhabited Europe during the two overflows of the glaciers
and the two interglacial periods is known to us chiefly by the stone
implements which are found in the strata of these periods, along with
the bones of animals which are now extinct or which have migrated into
other regions. It must not be inferred from this that palæolithic man
used no other but stone tools or weapons. The finds of objects made
out of bone, horn, stag’s horn, shell, and wood belonging to these
periods are there to bear witness to the contrary. Only these finds
are much more rare, on account of the ease with which bone, horn, and
especially wood, decompose after a more or less prolonged stay in the
ground. Basing their conclusions on the variety of the forms of the
stone implements and partly on the frequent occurrence of bone objects,
palæethnologists have divided the two interglacial periods which form
their _stone age_ or _palæolithic period_ into two or three periods,
according to country. It would have been better, in my opinion, to have
replaced in the present instance the word “period” by the term “state
of civilisation,” for these periods are far from being synchronous
throughout the whole of Europe; the Vogules and the Samoyeds were in
the “stone age” hardly a century ago.
Nevertheless, for certain defined regions, we may consider it settled
that the first so-called _Chellean_ “period,” characterised by the
“knuckle-duster,” belongs, as we have seen (p. 302), to the first
interglacial period, and that the others coincide with the second
(Boule). In a general way, we may distinguish in the latter a more
ancient period, characterised by the abundance of mammoth bones and by
smaller and more varied implements than the Chellean tool; and a more
recent period characterised by the presence of the reindeer in Central
and Western Europe, by the frequent occurrence of bone tools, and by
the appearance of the graphic arts, at least in certain regions.
The first of these “periods” is known as the _Mousterian_; it is
well represented in France, Belgium, southern Germany, Bohemia, and
England.[344]
Instead of a single flint implement, the “knuckle-duster,” which was
used variously in the Chellean period, with or without a handle, as an
axe, hammer, and dagger, a variety of implements make their appearance
in the Mousterian period, and, among others, tools needed in the
manufacture of garments, blades to open and skin animals, scrapers to
make their hides supple, sharp-edged awls for cutting the skin and when
necessary making cords or straps from it, for piercing it and making
button-holes.[345] On the other hand, the use of the bow does not seem
to have been known, for in the Mousterian deposits there have not
been found any arrow-heads either in flint or bone. These arrow-heads
appear only in the next period, generally called the _reindeer age_;
in France styled, according to the classification of G. de Mortillet,
the _Magdalenian period_.[346] The man of this period was still in
the hunting stage, but had more perfect hunting weapons than in the
Mousterian period; he was also occasionally a fisher, and probably
reared the reindeer. But his especial characteristic in certain
regions, as in the south-west of France, is that he was a consummate
artist. He has left us admirable carvings (Fig. 85, B), and engravings
on bone most expressive in design (Fig. 85, A).[347]
After the second glacial period, the era of great overflows and
withdrawals of the glaciers came to a definite close for Central
Europe; but it continued in the north, in Scotland, and especially
around the Baltic, even as it is still prolonged to our own day in
Greenland and Iceland.
According to Geikie and De Geer, the glaciers advanced and withdrew
thrice again in Scandinavia and Scotland after continental Europe
was almost entirely rid of them (Geikie’s fourth to sixth glacial
periods).[348]
[Illustration: /Fig./ 85.--Quaternary art (Magdalenian period):
B, dagger of reindeer horn with sculptured haft, Laugerie-Haute
(Dordogne); A, “Baton of command” with carving (La Madeleine, Dord.);
two-thirds natural size.
(_After G. and A. de Mortillet._)]
A slow sinking of the land, which submerged beneath the ocean all the
countries to the north and north-east of Europe, marks the end of
the quaternary period, and the beginning of the present era in the
geological sense of the word. This era is characterised, from the
archæological point of view, by the substitution for the “earlier stone
age” (_palæolithic period_) of another “age,” or, better, of another
stage of civilisation, that of the _later stone age_ (_neolithic_).
However, this “age” did not come in abruptly, after a lapse of time,
the _hiatus_ of ancient palæethnologists, during which man retired, it
was supposed, from Central Europe and emigrated towards the north after
the reindeer.[349] There must have been a transitional or _mesolithic_
period.[350] Nor was neolithic civilisation established everywhere
at the same time. Thus the Scandinavian peninsula, from which the
glaciers have not yet altogether withdrawn, was in course of formation
during this period.[351] The “neolithic folk,” settling at first in
Denmark, then in Gothland, have left us in the kitchen-middens (kitchen
refuse, accumulations of shells) certain chipped stone implements, a
sort of hatchet of a special form, contemporaneous with the neolithic
tools of the rest of Europe.
These tools are associated in the geological beds and prehistoric
stations with other objects which denote among the Europeans of this
period a fairly advanced civilisation: knowledge of agriculture,
pottery, the weaving of stuffs, the rearing of cattle.
The “neolithic people” constructed pile-dwellings near lakesides,
in Switzerland, France, Italy, Ireland; they buried their dead under
dolmens, and raised other megalithic monuments (upright stones, the
rows at Carnac, etc.), of which the meaning has not yet been cleared up.
As may have been seen from this brief account, it is almost perfectly
well known what were the stages of civilisation of the Europeans in
the quaternary and neolithic periods. It is different with regard to
the physical type of these Europeans. In fact, of interglacial man,
contemporary of the _Elephas antiquus_, the maker of those flint
implements exhumed from the lowest beds of the oldest quaternary
alluvia, we have no remains, except perhaps two molar teeth, found by
Nehring in the Taubach station (near Weimar), and some other disputed
fragments (Neanderthal, Brux, and Tilbury skulls). This statement,
made for the first time by Boule in 1888, is now admitted by many
palæethnologists.[352] As far as man contemporary with the mammoth
(_Elephas primigenius_) and the reindeer is concerned, we possess a
certain number of skulls and bones from the river drifts and caves.
But a doubt exists as to the beds in which many of these specimens
were found, and consequently as to their date. Eliminating all those
of unknown or uncertain age, we have at the most, for the whole of
Europe, but a dozen skulls or fragments of skulls and a score of other
bones genuinely quaternary.[353] Evidently that is insufficient for the
forming of an opinion on the physical type of quaternary Europeans.
However, one significant fact is elicited from an examination of this
small series, and it is this: that all the skulls composing it are
very long, very dolichocephalic. The exceptions put forward, like
the skulls of upper Grenelle (Seine), Furfooz (Belgium), La Truchère
(Saône-et-Loire), Valle do Areciro (Portugal), do not conflict with
this assertion; there are reasons for believing that certain of these
skulls belong to the neolithic period, and that others date from
the mesolithic period, or, at the very outside, from the end of the
quaternary period. These then, even admitting the authenticity of their
date, would only be isolated precursors of the neolithic brachycephals
with whom we shall deal further on.
[Illustration: /Fig./ 86.--Spy skull, first quaternary race.
(_After Fraipont and Jacques._)]
Let us return to our palæolithic dolichocephals. These appear to
belong to two distinct types, the so-called Neanderthal or Spy type,
referred to the Mousterian period, very well represented by the skulls
and bones found at Spy, near Namur in Belgium; then the type of the
Magdalenian period, represented by the skulls exhumed at Laugerie-Basse
and Chancelade (Dordogne). The first of these types is characterised by
marked dolichocephaly (ceph. ind. from 70 to 75.3), by the exceedingly
low and retreating forehead, by the prominent brow ridges (Fig. 86),
and probably by a low stature (about 1 m. 59). Several pithecoid
characters are observable on the skull and bones of this type, the
presence of which has been noted, from England (skull from Bury St.
Edmunds, in Suffolk), Belgium (Spy skull, La Naulette jaw), and perhaps
the Rhenish province (Neanderthal skull), to the Pyrenees (jaw found
at Malarnau, Ariège), Bohemia, Moravia (Predmost and Podbaba skulls),
and Italy (Olmo skull). Like all the other prehistoric races, that
of Neanderthal or Spy has not entirely disappeared; Neanderthaloid
skulls are found, few in number it is true, in several prehistoric
or historic burial-places (at Furfooz in Belgium, in the dolmens
of France, England, Ireland, etc.). Scattered here and there, some
rare individuals may still be observed in the populations of the
present day showing the characters of this race, according to the
statements of Roujoux, Quatrefages, Virchow, Kollmann, and other
anthropologists.[354] The second so-called Laugerie-Chancelade race
(Hervé) is represented at the present day by only three or four skulls
and some other bones found at Laugerie-Basse, Chancelade (Dordogne),
and Sordes (Landes). It is characterised by a dolichocephaly almost
equal to that of the preceding race, but it differs from it in the
high and broad forehead, the capacious skull, the absence of the brow
ridges, the high orbits, and especially the face with projecting
cheek-bones, high and broad at the same time (Fig. 87). Its stature
is rather low. This is the type to which approximates the race of
the _Baumes-Chaudes_ of Hervé or the true race of _Cro-Magnon_,
which appeared quite at the end of the Magdalenian, if not at the
transitional or mesolithic period. The latter race differs from the
former in its very pronounced dolichocephaly (ceph. ind. from 63
to 74.8), its lower face and orbits, its very lofty stature (from
1 m. 71 to 1 m. 80), and many other characters.[355] We see then,
at the beginning of the neolithic period, the second quaternary
dolichocephalic race still existing slightly modified, but we also see
the earliest brachycephals appearing along with it.
[Illustration: /Fig./ 87.--Chancelade skull, second quaternary race.
(_After Testut._)]
Several hundred skulls, found in neolithic burial-places in France,
Switzerland, Austria, and Germany, exhibit an intermixture of
brachycephals and dolichocephals. According to the more or less
frequent occurrence of the former in relation to the latter in each
burial, we may, with Hervé,[356] trace the route followed by these
brachycephals of Central Europe, from the plains of Hungary, by
the valley of the Danube, into Belgium and Switzerland; from these
last-named countries they flung themselves on the dolichocephalic
populations of France and modified the primitive type, especially in
the plains of the north-east and in the Alpine region.
But if the “neolithic” people of France and Central Europe belonged
to at least two distinct races, the same has not been the case with
the other countries of our continent. In the British Isles we find
ourselves, on the contrary, as regards this period, in presence of a
remarkable homogeneity of type; it is without exception dolichocephalic
(cephal. ind. from 65 to 75 for the men), with elongated faces, such
as are found in the long-barrows. Did they come from the Continent in
neolithic times, or are they the descendants of the palæolithic men of
Great Britain, the physical type of which is unknown to us? This is a
question which still awaits solution. In Russia also, we only meet
with dolichocephals during the later stone age (certain “Kourganes”
and the neolithic station of Lake Ladoga).[357] In Spain, in Portugal,
in Sweden, dolichocephalic skulls are found in conjunction with some
brachycephalic ones, the latter somewhat rare however.[358]
It is impossible for us to enter into details while treating of the
period which followed the neolithic, that is to say the “age” of metals
(copper, bronze, and iron). The metal which first took the place of
stone was probably copper. In fact, the copper weapons are hammered or
cast after the pattern of the stone axes and daggers, and in certain
stations in Spain have been found ornaments in bronze (precious metal
rarely) by the side of tools and arms in copper (ordinary metal). The
existence of a “copper age” is, however, admitted to-day by almost
all authorities, who regard it as an experimental period; it supplies
one of the arguments in favour of the theory that the bronze industry
did not come from the East (from the shores of the Euxine, Egypt,
Mesopotamia, India, or Indo-China, according to different authors), as
was thought until recent times, but sprang up locally in Europe itself.
The complete absence of oriental objects, for instance Assyrian
cylinders or Egyptian sculptured scarabæi in the finds of the bronze
age in Europe, is an argument in favour of the new theory, maintained
chiefly by Salomon Reinach in France and Much in Austria. The
Scandinavian authors, Sophus Müller and Montelius, admit the local
development of the industry in metallic objects, but with materials
supplied by the merchants of the Archipelago and Cyprus. The great
trade-route for amber, and perhaps tin, between Denmark and the
Archipelago is well known at the present day; it passes through
the valley of the Elbe, the Moldau, and the Danube. The commercial
relations between the north and south explain the similarities which
archæologists find between Scandinavian bronze objects and those of
the Ægean district (Schliemann’s excavations at Mycenæ, Troy, Tiryns,
etc.).[359]
It is generally admitted that the ancient bronze age corresponds with
the “Ægean civilisation” which flourished among the peoples inhabiting,
between the thirtieth and twentieth centuries /B.C./, Switzerland,
the north of Italy, the basin of the Danube, the Balkan peninsula, a
part of Anatolia, and, lastly, Cyprus. It gave rise (between 1700 and
1100 /B.C./) to the “Mycenian” civilisation, of which the favourite
ornamental design is the spiral.[360]
In Sweden the bronze age began later, in the seventeenth or eighteenth
century /B.C./, but it continued longer there than in Southern
Europe.
So also, according to Montelius, the introduction of iron dates only
from the fifth or third century /B.C./ in Sweden, while Italy
was acquainted with this metal as far back as the twelfth century
/B.C./ The civilisation of the “iron age” distributed over
two periods, according to the excavations made in the stations of
Hallstatt (Austria) and La Tène (Switzerland), must have been imported
from Central Europe into Greece through Illyria. This importation
corresponds perhaps with the Dorian invasion of the Peloponnesus. The
so-called “Hallstattian” period lasted in Central Europe, France,
and Northern Italy from the tenth or ninth to the sixth century
/B.C./ The Hallstattian civilisation flourished chiefly in
Carinthia, Southern Germany, Switzerland, Bohemia, Silesia, Bosnia,
the south-east of France, and Southern Italy (the pre-Etruscan iron
age of Montelius). The period which followed, called the second or
iron age, or the La Tène period,[361] was prolonged until the first
century /B.C./ in France, Bohemia, and England. In Scandinavian
countries the _first iron age_ lasted till the sixth century, and the
_second iron age_ till the tenth century /A.D./
The physical type of the inhabitants of Europe during the bronze age
varies according to country. In England they were sub-brachycephals
(ceph. ind. 81), of whom the remains found in the “round barrows”
have been described by Thurnam and Beddoe. In Sweden and Denmark they
were dolichocephals or mesocephals, tall and fair-haired, as far as
one can gather from the remains of hair found in the burial-places
(Montelius and S. Hansen). In the valley of the Rhine and Southern
Germany they were typical dolichocephals, above the medium stature
(type of the “Reihengräber” or row-graves, established by Holder and
studied by Ranke, Lehmann-Nietsche, and others). In Switzerland, in the
pile-dwellings, the neolithic brachycephals, of whom we have spoken,
were succeeded in the bronze age by dolichocephals similar to those of
Germany. During the Hallstattian period of the “iron age,” we notice
the persistence of the dolichocephalic and tall type in the row-graves
of the Rhine and Mein valleys; while during the following period of the
same age (that of La Tène or the Marnian), we find in the forms of the
skulls exhumed from the burial-places a diversity almost as great as
that which is seen in the populations of the present day.
The ages of bronze and iron, as we have seen, overlapped, in certain
regions, the historic period, the period of the Phœnician voyages,
the development of Egypt, the origin of Greek civilisation; and yet
it is very difficult to say to what peoples known to history must be
attributed the characteristic civilisations of each of the periods
of the age of metals, and what were the languages spoken by these
peoples. Most historians believed until quite recently that the
Euscarians, and perhaps the Ligurians or Lygians of Western Europe,
as well as the Iberians, the Pelasgian Tursans or Turses[362] of the
three southern peninsulas of our continent, were the “autochthones,”
or rather the oldest European peoples known to history. These would
then be the probable descendants of the palæolithic Europeans, the
races of Neanderthal, Spy, and Chancelade. Further, according to the
philologists and historians, these peoples spoke _non-Aryan_ languages,
and at a certain period, which D’Arbois de Jubainville[363] places
vaguely at twenty or twenty-five centuries /B.C./, Europe was
invaded by the _Aryans_, coming from Asia, who imposed their languages
on the autochthones. The Basque language of the present day, derived
from the Euscarian, is the only dialect surviving this transformation.
The central point for the ethnographic history of Europe is, according
to the philologists, the arrival of the Aryans.
But who were these Aryans? Nobody quite knows. It is no part of my
plan to write the history of the Aryan controversy.[364] It is enough
to say that men of acknowledged authority in science (Pott, Grimm,
Max Müller) have maintained for a long time, without any solid proof,
the existence not only of a primitive Aryan language, which gave
birth to the dialects of nearly every people of Europe, but also of
an “Aryan race,” supposed to have sprung up “somewhere” in Asia, one
part migrating towards India and Persia, while the remainder made
its way by slow stages to Europe. Generations of scientific men have
accepted this hypothesis, which, after all, had no other foundation
than such aphorisms as “ex oriente lux” put forward by Pott, or “the
irresistible impulse towards the west” invented by Grimm. It must,
however, be mentioned that objections against this hypothesis by
recognised authorities were raised as soon as it was promulgated; they
came from philologists like Latham (1855), ethnographers like d’Omalius
d’Halloy, anthropologists like Broca (1864); but it was only about
1880 that a somewhat lively reaction took place against the current
ideas, and it originated in the camp of the philologists themselves.
De Saussure, Sayce, and others, returning to the ideas expressed long
before by Benfey, rightly observed that the assumed close relationship
between Sanscrit and Zend and the primitive Aryan language rests solely
on the fact of the archaic forms of these two dialects being preserved
to the present time in written monuments, while the Aryan languages of
Europe do not possess documents so ancient. They said further, that
the European languages of the present day, such as Lithuanian, for
example, are much nearer the primitive Aryan forms than the Asiatic
dialects, Hindu for example. As to the Asiatic origin of the Aryans, a
somewhat rude blow was struck at this second hypothesis by Poesche and
Penka, who, taking up the ideas of Linné and d’Omalius d’Halloy on the
exclusive existence in Europe of fair-haired populations, identified
these populations, without any proof, it is true, with the Aryans.[365]
In reality, the hypothesis of the fair-haired “Aryan race,” tall and
dolichocephalic (Fig. 88), indigenous to Europe, does not rest on a
firmer foundation than that of the “Aryan race” coming from Asia.
Anthropology is powerless to say if the ancient owners of the
dolichocephalic skulls in Southern Europe spoke an Aryan language
or not. Moreover, the works of modern philologists, with Oscar
Schrader[366] at their head, show that we can no longer speak to-day
of an “Aryan race,” but solely of a _family of Aryan languages_, and
perhaps of a primitive _Aryan civilisation_ which had preceded the
separation of the different Aryan dialects from their common stock.
[Illustration: /Fig./ 88.--Islander of Lewis (Hebrides), Northern Race.
(_Phot. Beddoe._)]
This civilisation, as reconstituted by O. Schrader, differs much
from that which Pictet had sketched out in his essay on “Linguistic
Palæontology.” This was something analogous to the neolithic
civilisation; metals were unknown in it (with the exception, perhaps,
of copper), but agriculture and the breeding of cattle had already
reached a fair stage of development. However, there is nothing to prove
that peoples speaking non-Aryan languages had not been in possession
of the same civilisation, which with them would be developed in an
independent manner. Hence we see the uselessness of looking for a
centre from which this Aryan culture might have proceeded. The only
question which we may still ask ourselves is, what was the point
from which diffusion of the Aryan _languages_ in Europe began. This
point no one at the present time seeks any longer in Asia. It is in
Europe, and what we have to do is to define it (S. Reinach). Latham
and d’Omalius d’Halloy located the habitat of the primitive Aryans in
the south or south-east of Russia. Penka had placed it in Scandinavia.
Other learned authorities have selected intermediate points between
these extremes.[367]
On the whole, the Aryan question to-day has no longer the importance
which was formerly given to it. All that we can legitimately suppose
is that, in the period touching the neolithic age, the inhabitants of
Europe were _Aryanised_ from the point of view of language, without
any notable change in the constitution of their physical type, or,
probably, of their civilisation.
_Migrations of European Peoples during the Historic Period._--It
would require volumes to relate even succinctly all the movements and
dislocations of European peoples. We can only recall here the more
salient facts.
The confirmation afforded by history respecting European populations
does not go farther back than the eighth or ninth century /B.C./
for the Mediterranean district, and than the second or third century
/B.C./ for the rest of Europe. But proto-historic archæology
makes us acquainted with a movement of peoples between the tenth and
the eleventh century /B.C./ The Dorians and the inhabitants
of Thessaly penetrated at this date into Greece and forced a portion
of the inhabitants of this country (the Achæans, the Eolians) to seek
refuge on the nearest coast of Asia Minor. About the same period the
Tyrrhenians or Turses (a small section of the Pelasgians) moved into
Central Italy, taking with them the Mycenian civilisation, somewhat
debased, and founding there the Etruscan “nation.” This nation drove
back the _Ombro-Latins_ or _Italiotes_, who, in their turn, expelled
the _Sicules_ (a branch of the _Ligurians_, according to D’Arbois de
Jubainville) in Sicily.
The _Venetes_ and the _Illyrians_ made their appearance at nearly the
same period on the coasts of the Adriatic, and the _Thracians_ in
present Bosnia.
Central Europe was occupied, probably from this period, by Celtic
populations who, from their primitive country between the upper
Danube and the Rhine, spread into the valley of the Po (bronze age of
the “terramare,” sites or foundations of prehistoric huts), in the
middle valley of the Danube (Hallstatt), and later (seventh century
/B.C./?) into the north of Gaul, whence they reached the
British Isles (“ancient Celts” of the English archæologists, “Gaelic
Celts” of the philologists).[368] It was also about the tenth century
/B.C./ that the Scythians, established in Southern Russia some
time before, spread themselves towards the mid-Danube.
About the fifth century /B.C./ there evidently occurred
another movement of peoples. The _Trans-Alpine Celts_ or _Galatians_
invaded, under the name of _Celto-Belgæ_, Jutland, Northern Germany,
the Low Countries, England (the “new Celts” or Britons of English
authors). They also spread over a large part of Gaul, and into Spain
(_Celtiberians_), and then in 392 /B.C./,[369] they penetrated
into Italy, where they found their kinsmen, who had been settled there
for three centuries, and were under the subjugation of the Etruscans;
these they overturned, and only halted after having taken Rome (390).
A little later (about 300), other waves of Celts, the Galatians,
occupied the valley of the Danube, whence they chased the Illyrians
and the Thracians. The more audacious of them continued their course
across Thrace and penetrated into Asia Minor, where they established
themselves in the country, since known as Galatia (279).
During this period (from the fifth to the third century), which may be
called Celtic, by analogy with that which followed, styled the Roman
period, history mentions the _Germans_ as a people similar to the
Celts, and dwelling to the north-east of the latter.
[Illustration: /Fig./ 89.--Norwegian of South Osterdalen. Ceph. ind.,
70.2. Northern race.
(_After Arbo._)]
The Roman conquest of transalpine Europe, effected in the first
centuries /B.C./ and /A.D./, imposed the language of Latium on the
majority of Celts, Iberians, and Italo-Celts, and maintained the
populations within almost the same bounds during three centuries.
[Illustration: /Fig./ 90.--Same subject as Fig. 89, seen in profile.]
The period extending from the second to the sixth century of the
Christian era comprises the great historic epoch of the “migrations
of peoples.” In this period we see the _Slavs_ spreading in all
directions: towards the Baltic, beyond the Elbe, into the basin of
the Danube and beyond, into the Balkan peninsula; this movement
determined that of the _Germans_, who invaded the south-east of England
(Angles, Saxons, Jutes), Belgium, the north-east of France (Franks),
Switzerland, and Alsace (Alemanni), the south of Germany (Bavarians),
and spread even beyond the Alps (Longobards). The Celts in their turn
pushed the Iberians farther and farther into the south-west of France
and Spain, while the Italo-Celts absorbed little by little the rest of
the Etruscans and Ligurians. Towards the end of this period a final
wave of invasion, that of the Huns (fifth century), the Avars (sixth),
and other allied tribes, once more threw Europe into a state of
perturbation; they spread out into the plains of Champagne, then drew
back, severed the Slavs into two groups (northern and southern), and
subsided in the plains of Hungary, already partly occupied for several
centuries by the Dacians. Almost at the same time the Bulgarians
removed from the banks of the Volga to both sides of the Danube. After
the sixth century other ethnic movements, less general, but not less
important, occurred in every part of Europe. In the eighth or ninth
century the invasion of the Varecks (Scandinavians or Letts?) took
place in the north-west of Russia. In the ninth century the Hungarians,
pushed by the tribes of the Pechenecks and the Polovtsis who invaded
the south of Russia, crossed the Carpathians and settled in the valley
of the Tissa. From the ninth or tenth century, the Normans or Northmen
(Danes, Scandinavians) established themselves in the north and east
of the British Isles as well as the north of France, a part of which
still bears their name. Almost at the same time (tenth to eleventh
century) the Arabs made themselves masters of the Iberian peninsula, of
Southern Italy and Sicily; they maintained their position to the south
of the Guadalquivir until the fifteenth century. In the twelfth century
the Germans drove back the western Slavs to the banks of the Vistula,
which led to the expansion of the eastern Slavs towards the north-east
at the expense of the Finnish tribes. In the thirteenth century came
the Mongols, or rather the Turco-Mongolian hordes; they occupied the
whole of Russia (as far as Novgorod in the north), and penetrated into
Europe as far as Liegnitz in Silesia. They soon withdrew from Western
Europe, but remained until the fifteenth century in the east of Russia,
and even until the eighteenth century in the Crimea and the steppes
of southern Russia. Finally, the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries
witnessed the invasion of the Osmanli Turks into the Balkan peninsula,
Hungary, and even into lower Austria, as well as the migrations of
the Little Russians into the upper basin of the Dnieper. About the
sixteenth century began the definite movement of the Little Russians
towards the steppes of Southern Russia, and the slow but sure march of
the Great Russians beyond the Volga, the Ural mountains, and farther,
into Siberia--a movement which continues in our own time. We can only
mention other migrations or colonisations of a more limited range, that
of the Illyrians and Albanians into Southern Italy, that of the Germans
in Hungary and Russia, etc., as well as the arrival of non-European
peoples, _Gypsies_ and _Jews_, who are scattered at the present day
among all the nations of our continent.
II.--EUROPEAN RACES OF THE PRESENT DAY.
Setting out from the fact that the peoples or nations of Europe,
like those of the rest of the earth for the matter of that, are
formed of the intermixture in varying proportions of different
races or varieties (see the _Introduction_), I have endeavoured, by
grouping the exact characters, carefully abstracted from many million
individuals, relating to stature, form of head, pigmentation, and other
somatic particulars, to determine the constituent elements of these
intermixtures. I have thus succeeded in distinguishing the existence
of six principal and of four secondary races, the combinations of
which, in various proportions, constitute the different “European
peoples” properly so called, distinct from the peoples of other races,
Lapp, Ugrian, Turkish, Mongolian, etc., which are likewise met with in
Europe.[370]
Here, in short, are the characters and geographical distribution of
those races which, in order to avoid every interpretation drawn from
linguistic, historical, or nationalist considerations, I describe
according to their principal physical characters, or for the sake of
brevity, according to the geographical names of the regions in which
these races are best represented or least crossed.
We have in Europe, to begin with, two _fair-haired races_, one
dolichocephalic, of very tall stature (Northern race), and another,
sub-brachycephalic, comparatively short (Eastern race). Then _four
dark-haired_ races: two of short stature, one of which (Ibero-insular)
is dolichocephalic, the other (Cevenole or Western) brachycephalic; and
two of high stature, of which one is sub-dolichocephalic (Littoral),
the other brachycephalic (Adriatic). Among the four secondary races two
have a relation to the fair-haired race, while the two others may be
considered as intermediate between the fair and dark-haired races (see
Map 2). I now give a few details respecting these races.
[Illustration: /Fig./ 91.--Young Sussex farmer. Dolichocephalic, fair.
Northern race.
(_After Beddoe._)]
[Illustration: /Map/ 2.--Approximate distribution of the races of
Europe.]
1. _Fair, dolichocephalic race of very high stature_, which may be
called the _Northern Race_, because its representatives are grouped
together almost exclusively in the north of Europe. Principal
characters: very lofty stature (1 m. 73 on an average);[371] fair,
sometimes reddish, wavy hair; light eyes, for the most part blue;
elongated, dolichocephalic head (cephalic index on the living subject
from 76 to 79); ruddy white skin, elongated face, prominent straight
nose. The race of this type, pure or slightly modified, of whose
principal traits Figs. 88 to 92 give a fairly good representation,
is found in Sweden, Denmark, Norway (with the exception of the west
coast); in the north of Scotland; on the east coast and in the north
of England, in Ireland (with the exception of the north-west), in the
northern Faroe Isles, in Holland (north of the Rhine); in the Frisian
countries, in Oldenburg, Schleswig-Holstein, Mecklenburg; lastly, in
the Baltic provinces of Russia, and among the Tavasts of Finland. It
is the _Cymric race_ of Broca, the _Germanic_ race (_the race of the
row-graves_) of German authors, or, in fine, the _Homo Europeus_ of
Lapouge.
[Illustration: /Fig./ 92.--Englishwoman of Plymouth (Devon). Mixed
Northern and North-western races (?).
(_Phot. Beddoe._)]
To this race is related a secondary race, _fair_, _mesocephalic_, _of
tall stature_, called _Sub-northern_, with angular face, turned-up
nose, straight hair; it is found more especially in Northern Germany,
among the Letto-Lithuanians, in Finland, and on the west coast of
Norway (in part Figs. 89 and 90).
2. _Fair_, _sub-brachycephalic_, _short race_, or _Eastern race_, so
styled because its representatives are almost exclusively grouped
together in the east of Europe. Principal characters: stature somewhat
short (1 m. 63 or 1 m. 64 on an average), moderately rounded head
(cephalic index, 82 to 83 on the living subject), straight, light
yellow or flaxen hair, square-cut face, nose frequently turned up, blue
or grey eyes. The representatives of this race are the White Russians,
the Polieshchooki of the Pinsk marshes, and certain Lithuanians.
Blended with others this type is frequent among the Vielkorousses or
Great Russians of Northern and Central Russia, as well as in Finland
and Eastern Prussia (Figs. 104 and 105, modified type).
With this race we have to connect a secondary race, _fair_,
_mesocephalic_, _of very short stature_ (_Vistulian_ race), the
characters of which are frequently met with among the Poles, the
Kashoobs, and probably in Saxony and Silesia.
3. _Dark_, _dolichocephalic_, _short race_, called _Ibero-insular_,
because it is chiefly found in the Iberian peninsula and the islands
of the western Mediterranean. It is found, however, somewhat softened,
in France (in Angoumois, Limousin, and Perigord) and in Italy (to
the south of the Rome-Ascoli line). Principal characters: very short
stature (1 m. 61 to 1 m. 62 on an average), very elongated head
(cephalic index averaging 73 to 76 on the living subject), black, often
curled, hair, very dark eyes, tawny skin, straight or turned-up nose,
etc. It forms, partly, the “_Mediterranean race_” of Sergi,[372] or
the _Homo meridionalis_ of certain authors (Ripley, Lapouge). Figures
99 and 100 represent traits of this race, but modified by intermixtures.
[Illustration: /Fig./ 93.--Fisher people of Island of Aran (Ireland).
North-western race (?).
(_Phot. Haddon._)]
4. _Dark_, _very brachycephalic_, _short race_, named the _Western_ or
_Cevenole race_, because of the localisation of its most characteristic
type in the extreme west of Europe, in the Cévennes, on the central
table-land of France, and also in the western Alps. But it is met
with, a little modified, in Brittany (with the exception of Morbihan),
in Poitou, Quercy, the middle valley of the Po, in Umbria, in part
of Tuscany, in Transylvania, and probably the middle of Hungary.
Blended with other races, it is found again at a number of points in
Europe, from the basin of the middle Loire to that of the Dnieper,
passing through Piedmont, Central and Eastern Switzerland, Carinthia,
Moravia, Galicia, and Podolia. In Southern Italy it is blended
with the Ibero-insular race. It is the _Celtic_ or _Rhetian_ race,
the _Celto-Slav_, _Ligurian_, or _Celto-Ligurian_ race of some
anthropologists, the _Homo Alpinus_ of others. It is characterised by
a very rounded skull (average ceph. ind. on the living subject from 85
to 87); by shortness of stature (1 m. 63 or 1 m. 64 on an average); by
brown or black hair, light or dark brown eyes, rounded face, thick-set
figure (Fig. 98, perceptibly softened type of this race).
[Illustration: /Fig./ 94.--Young woman of Arles. Mixed Littoral race
(?).
(_Phot. lent by School of Anthropology, Paris._)]
5. _Dark_, _mesocephalic_, _tall race_, _Littoral_ or
_Atlanto-Mediterranean race_, so styled because it is found in a pure
or mixed state along the shores of the Mediterranean from Gibraltar to
the mouth of the Tiber, and on several points of the Atlantic coast,
from the straits of Gibraltar to the mouth of the Guadalquivir, on the
Bay of Biscay, in the lower valley of the Loire, etc. It is not met
with anywhere at a greater distance than 120 or 150 miles from the sea.
This Littoral race is still little studied; it is distinguished by its
moderate dolichocephaly or mesocephaly (ceph. ind. on living subject
79 to 80), by its stature above the average (1 m. 66), and very deep
colouring of the hair and eyes. It corresponds pretty well with the
“_Mediterranean race_” of Houzé,[373] and with the Cro-Magnon race of
certain authors.
[Illustration: /Fig./ 95.--Pure type of Highlander (clan Chattan); grey
eyes, hair dark brown.
(_Phot. Beddoe._)]
It is probably with this Littoral race that we must connect
a _secondary_ so-called _North-Western race_, _tall_,
_sub-dolichocephalic_, with _chestnut hair_, often almost brown. It is
found chiefly in the north-west of Ireland (Fig. 93), in Wales (Fig.
19), and the east of Belgium.
[Illustration: /Fig./ 96.--The same, seen in profile.]
6. _Dark_, _brachycephalic_, _tall race_, called _Adriatic_ or
_Dinaric_, because its purest representatives are met with along the
coast of the Northern Adriatic and especially in Bosnia, Dalmatia, and
Croatia. They are also found in Rumania, Venetia, among the Slovenes,
the Ladinos of the Tyrol, the Romansch of Switzerland, as well as in
the populations of the tract of country which extends south to north
from Lyons to Liège, at first between the Loire and the Saône, then on
to the table-land of Langres, in the upper valleys of the Saône and the
Moselle, and into the Ardennes. In all these parts the Adriatic race
appears with its essential characters: lofty stature (1 m. 68 to 1 m.
72 on an average), extreme brachycephaly (ceph. ind. 85-86), brown or
black wavy hair; dark eyes, straight eyebrows; elongated face, delicate
straight or aquiline nose; slightly tawny skin. The same characters,
somewhat softened, are met with among the populations of the lower
valley of the Po, of the north-west of Bohemia, in Roman Switzerland,
in Alsace, in the middle basin of the Loire, among the Polish and
Ruthenian mountaineers of the Carpathians, and lastly among the
Malorousses or Little Russians, and probably among the Albanians and
the inhabitants of Servia.
We may connect with this principal race a _secondary race_, _not quite
so tall_ (medium stature 1 m. 66) and less brachycephalic (average
ceph. ind. from 82 to 85), but having lighter hair and eyes. This race,
which we might call Sub-Adriatic, springing probably from the blending
of the principal race with the tall, fair mesocephals (secondary
Sub-northern race), is found in Perche, Champagne, Alsace-Lorraine,
the Vosges, Franche-comté, Luxemburg, Zealand (Holland), the Rhenish
provinces, Bavaria, the south-east of Bohemia, German Austria, the
central district of the Tyrol, and a part of Lombardy and Venetia. It
partly corresponds with the _Lorraine Race_ of Collignon.[374]
III.--PRESENT PEOPLES OF EUROPE.
Linguistic study being older than anthropological study, the
classing of the best known peoples in Europe is that which is based
on difference of language. Nearly every one knows that the ethnic
groups of our continent are as a consequence distributed into “Aryan”
and an-Aryan peoples. The former are divided (1) into three great
linguistic families, _Latin or Roman_ in the south-west of Europe,
_Teutonic_ in the centre and north, _Slav_ in the south-east and east;
and (2) into three smaller ones: _Celtic_ in the extreme north-west
of the continent, _Helleno-Illyrian_ in the extreme south-east,
and _Letto-Lithuanian_ in the centre. As to the non-Aryan group,
it comprises the _Basques_, the _Finno-Ugrians_, the _Turks_, the
_Mongols_, the _Semites_, and the _Caucasian_ peoples.
These groups are heterogeneous enough in physical type and
civilisation. What, for example, have the two _Latin_ peoples, the
Portuguese and Romans, in common? or the two _Slav_ peoples, like the
Kashoobs, fair, short, thick-set, peaceful cultivators of the plain,
and the Montenegrins, dark, tall, slender, warlike shepherds of the
mountain? What more striking contrast can we imagine than that between
a Norwegian, tall and fair, a bold sailor, whose flag floats in every
port of the world, and a Tyrolese of the north, dark and short, a
sedentary cultivator of the soil, whose horizon is bounded by the
summits of his mountains? However, both these are included in the
“Germanic” group.
Nevertheless, and only to bring out better the differences between
linguistic divisions and those of ethnography and ethnology, I shall
rapidly pass in review the “peoples” of Europe, according to the
linguistic grouping as outlined above.
A. ETHNIC “ARYAN” GROUPS.
I. _Latin or Roman Peoples_, that is to say speaking languages derived
from the Latin. The majority of philologists divide them into seven
distinct groups, viz., French of the north, Languedocian-Catalan,
Spanish, Portuguese-Galego, Italian, Romansch-Ladino, and Rumanian.
1. _The French group of the north_, or the Langue d’oil, comprises the
populations (Fig. 98) on the north of the line which, starting from
the Gironde, passes by Angoulême, Montmorillon, Montlucon, Lyons, and
the crests of the Jura, to terminate in the neighbourhood of Berne in
Switzerland.[375] Among the numerous dialects recognisable in it, we
must make special mention of _Wallon_, spoken in the southern part of
the department of the north in France, and in the southern half of
Belgium,[376] in the commune of Malmedy in Prussia, and in several
places in the grand duchy of Luxemburg. Northern French is likewise
spoken in the west part of Lorraine and lower Alsace annexed to
Germany, as well as in several places in upper Alsace.
[Illustration: /Fig./ 97.--Anglian type, common in north and north-east
of England.
(_After Beddoe._)]
2. _The Languedocian-Catalan group_, or the _Langue d’oc_, situated
south of the line referred to above, comprises four great dialectal
divisions which make a distinction between the _Gascons_ (south of the
Garonne) (Figs. 99 and 100) and the _Languedocians_ and _Provençals_
(Fig. 94), while admitting the mixed so-called _Rhodanian_ group (basin
of the upper Rhone, Roman Switzerland, Savoy, and the French valleys
of Piedmont)[377] and the _Catalan_ group (Roussillon in France,
Catalonia and Valencia in Spain, the Balearic Islands, and a point on
the west coast of Sardinia).
3rd and 4th. The _Spanish_ group comprises the peoples of _Castillian_
language, that is to say, the whole population of Spain, with the
exception of the Catalans and the inhabitants of Galicia; the latter
speak _Galego_, an idiom allied to Portuguese, and form with the
population of Portugal our fourth linguistic group, _Galego-Portuguese_.
[Illustration: /Fig./ 98.--Frenchman of Ouroux (Morvan). Mixed western
race.
(_Phot. School of Anthropology, Paris._)]
5. The _Italian group_ comprises the _Italians_[378] of the peninsula,
of Sicily, Sardinia, and the inhabitants of Corsica, of southern Tyrol
(south of Botzen), of the Swiss canton of Tessin, and of the coast
of Istria and Dalmatia. The Italian dialect enters also into the
constitution of the _Maltese_ jargon, derived for the most part from
the Arabic.
[Illustration: /Fig./ 99.--Dolichocephalic Frenchmen of Dordogne.
Ibero-insular race (?).
(_Phot. Collignon._)]
6. The _Romansch-Ladino_ or _Rheto-Roman_ group is formed by the
_Romansches_ of the southern part of the canton of Grisons (German
Switzerland) and by the Ladinos of the south-east of Tyrol (Groedner
Thal, etc.). These are probably the remnants of the old Alpine
population, having adopted the language of the Roman legionaries of the
time of the conquest. They are, moreover, in process of extinction as
a linguistic unit; their language gives place to Italian in the Tyrol,
to German in Switzerland. It is the same with the Friulans who are
related to this group, and who inhabit the basin of the Tagliamento in
Venetia.
[Illustration: /Fig./ 100.--The same subjects as in Fig. 99, seen in
profile.]
7. The _Rumanian group_ comprises the _Rumanians_ who are found, beyond
Moldo-Wallachia, again in Transylvania (Austria), the south-east of
Hungary, the north-east of Servia, Bessarabia, and in the lower valley
of the Dniester (south-west of Russia). To the Rumanians are related
the _Aromunes_ or _Kutzo-Vlakhs_, or _Zinzars_ of Epirus and Macedonia,
speaking a dialect allied to Rumanian, but modified by contact with
Turks, Greeks, and Albanians.[379]
There is no unity of type in any of these seven Latin linguistic
families. Among the Languedocian-Catalans we distinguish the presence
of at least three races: Western or Cevenole, which prevails on the
central table-lands of France, Littoral or Atlanto-Mediterranean,
predominant in Provence and Catalonia; Ibero-insular, which we find
in Angoumois as in Catalonia (see p. 329, and Map 2). In the same way
we may perceive in the Italian group the existence of representatives
of almost all the European races (except the Northern); we have only
to recall the striking contrast between the Venetian, tall, chestnut
coloured, brachycephalic, and the inhabitant of Southern Italy, short,
dark, and dolichocephalic. It is among the Portuguese, perhaps, that
we find the greatest unity of type; the majority of them belong to the
Ibero-insular race, except in the north of the country, where we find
intermixtures with the Western race, as among the Galicians of Spain.
II. The _Germanic or Teutonic peoples_ are usually divided into three
great linguistic groups: Anglo-Frisian, Scandinavian, and German.
1. The languages of the _Anglo-Frisian_ group, derived probably from
the ancient Gothic, are spoken by the _Frisians_ of the north of
Holland and the extreme north-west of Germany, by the inhabitants
of England (Figs. 91, 92, 97, and 101), and a considerable part of
Scotland (Figs. 88, 95, and 96), Ireland (Fig. 93), and Wales (Fig.
19), where English encroaches more and more on the domain of the
ancient Celtic languages.
The English language, which comprises many dialects,[380] is, in the
main, the Anglo-Saxon dialect, a branch of low German imported into the
island in the fifth century and modified in the eleventh century by the
language of gallicised Normans.
2. The _Scandinavian_ group comprises the _Swedes_, _Norwegians_
(Figs. 89 and 90), and _Danes_, the two last speaking almost the same
language. The Swedish language is also found in Finland (especially on
the coast), as Danish is in Schleswig. The _Icelanders_, descended for
the most part from Danish colonists, speak a special dialect, which
approaches most nearly to the old Norse.
3. The _German_ or _Teutonic_ group. The Germans of the north
(Saxons, Hanoverians, etc.) speak low German (_platt-Deutsch_,
_nieder-Deutsch_). One of the dialects of this idiom is transformed
into the _Flemish_ or _Dutch_ tongue, employed by the Netherlanders, as
well as the Flemings of the north of Belgium,[381] and several cantons
of the department of the north in France. The southern Germans (the
_Alemanni_ of German Switzerland, of Alsace and Baden; the _Swabians_
of this last province, Wurtemberg, and of Bavaria; the _Bavarians_ of
eastern Bavaria and of Austria) speak high German (_hoch-Deutsch_). The
inhabitants of middle Germany (Thuringians, Franconians, etc.) speak
middle German (_mittel-Deutsch_). This is also the language of the
_Prussians_, a people formed in part from the Slavo-Lithuanian elements
germanised but a few centuries ago. The boundary-line between low and
high German passes, from the Flemish zone in France and Belgium,
almost by Dusseldorf, Cassel, Dessau, and curving round Berlin in the
north reaches the confluence of the Oder and of the Warta, following
the course of this last.[382] There exist further in Europe several
German colonies: in upper Italy (Sette-Communi, etc.), in Bohemia, in
Hungary, and in the south and south-east of Russia. The German tongue
is much spoken in the Baltic provinces of Russia, as well as in Poland
and Austria-Hungary.[383]
[Illustration: /Fig./ 101.--Englishman (Gloucestershire), Saxon type.
(_After Beddoe._)]
[Illustration: /Fig./ 102.--Russian carpenter, 47 years old, district
of Pokrovsk (gov. Vladimir).
(_Phot. Bogdanoff, Coll. Museum of Nat. Hist., Paris._)]
From the somatological point of view, the Germanic group is no
more homogeneous than the “Latin.” Let us take, for example, the
Anglo-Frisians. We find among them at least three races in manifold
combinations. The Northern race (see p. 328, and Map 2) is prevalent
in the Frisian countries of Germany and Holland, as well as in that
part of England situated north of the line from Manchester to Hull,
and on the east coast, south of this line (Figs. 88, 91, and 97).
The secondary North-west race preponderates in the centre of England
(counties of Oxford, Hertford, and Gloucester, Fig. 101, etc.), while
the influence of the secondary Sub-northern race is especially felt
in the counties of Leicester and Nottingham, and on the south coast,
with the exception of Cornwall and Devon, where the Northern and
North-western races are counter-balanced (Fig. 92). In Scotland the
Northern type is often disguised by the dark colouring of the hair
(Figs. 95 and 96). The Scandinavian group is fairly homogeneous,
especially formed as it is of the Northern race (Figs. 88 to 90). But
in the German group diversities reappear, and we find in it elements of
almost all the races of Europe except the Littoral and Ibero-insular
ones.
[Illustration: /Fig./ 103.--Same subject as Fig. 102, seen in profile.
(_Phot. Bogdanoff, Coll. Museum of Nat. Hist., Paris._)]
III. The _Slav peoples_ may be divided into three great linguistic
groups--eastern, western, and southern.[384] The eastern group
comprises the _Great Russians_ or _Vielkorousses_ (Figs. 102 to 105),
the _Little Russians_ or _Malorousses_, otherwise called _Ukrainians_
or _Ruthenians_, and the _Bielorousses_ or _White Russians_. The latter
inhabit the upper basins of the Dnieper, the Dwina, and the Vistula as
far as the river Pripet (a tributary of the Dnieper), which separates
them from the Little Russians. As to the boundary between these and
the Great Russians, it follows an undulating line from the town of
Souraj towards the Don, then a little to the north of the province of
Kharkov, and thence to the south as far as the shores of the Sea of
Azov. The Little Russians of eastern Galicia and Bukovina are known by
the collective name of _Ruthenians_, or the local names of _Gorales_
(mountaineers), _Huzules_, _Boïki_, _Tukholtsi_, etc. The colonisers
of eastern and northern Russia have been Great Russians; the Little
Russians have founded colonies in the south-east of Russia.
The _western_ Slav _group_ is composed of _Poles_ of Russian Poland,
western Galicia, Posen, and eastern Prussia (_Mazours_, _Kashoobs_),
whose language is somewhat common in Lithuania; of _Wends_ or
_Lujichanes_ or _Sorobes_, of the kingdom of Saxony and the Prussian
province of Saxony (several thousands are in process of being
germanised), of _Czechs_ or _Bohemians_ of Bohemia, and of a part of
Moravia, of _Slovaks_, of Moravia and Hungary.
As to the _southern group_, it comprises the _Slovenes_ or _Slovintsi_
of Carniola and the interior of Istria (Austria-Hungary), and the
_Serbo-Croats_, known by the name of _Khorvates_ in Hungary, of
_Serbs_ in Servia, of _Morlaks_, _Uskoks_, etc., in Dalmatia, of
_Herzogovinians_, _Bosnians_, _Montenegrins_, or _Tsrnagortsi_ in other
parts of the Balkan peninsula. The Servian tongue is also spoken in
a portion of Macedonia. The Slav colonies which still existed some
centuries ago in Greece and Thessaly must have been formed largely of
Serbo-Croats. We must, lastly, include in this group the _Bulgarians_,
a people of Turco-Finnish origin, slavonised for at least ten
centuries; their habitat is in Bulgaria, Rumelia, a part of Macedonia,
and several localities of Turkey. There exist several Bulgarian
colonies in Russia (Crimea, northern shore of the Sea of Azov).
No greater homogeneity is shown by the Slav group than by the two great
preceding ones, from the point of view of corporeal structure, and it
is useless to look for a “Slav type.” Among the Slav peoples there is
an interblending, as far as is known at present, of three principal and
three secondary races, without taking into account the Turco-Ugrian
elements. The traits of the secondary Vistulian race appear especially
among the Poles of Prussia and Russia; the Eastern race is most
marked in the White Russians, but is also met with among the Great
Russians, the Mazours, and the Wends; the Adriatic race characterises
the Serbo-Croats, as well as certain Czechs and Ruthenians; the
sub-Adriatic race is well represented by a section of the Czechs, while
numerous elements of the Western race are met with among the Slovaks,
the Little Russians, and certain Great Russians.
Joined to the three great linguistic groups of Aryan peoples which
we have just characterised are three others, less considerable but
not less interesting, their manner of speech perhaps being nearer
to the primitive Aryan tongue. These are the Letto-Lithuanian,
Helleno-Illyrian, and Celtic groups.
The peoples of the _first group_ are the _Letts_ of Livonia and Kurland
(Russia), and the _Lithuanians_ peopling the provinces of Vilna,
Grodno, the north of Russian Poland, as well as western Prussia, where
they are germanised for the most part.
The majority of the Letts belong to the Northern or Sub-northern race,
while the Lithuanians exhibit elements of the Sub-northern and Eastern
race.
[Illustration: /Fig./ 104.--Russian woman of the district of Veréïa
(gov. Moscow), 20 years old, Eastern race (?).
(_Phot. Bogdanoff, Coll. Museum of Nat. Hist., Paris._)]
Among the peoples of the Helleno-Illyrian group the _Greeks_ are
distributed outside the political frontiers of the kingdom of Greece,
in Epirus, and on the coast of Macedonia and the Propontis. Greek
colonies are found in the rest of Turkey, in southern Russia, and in
the south-east of Italy (province of Lecce, Terra d’Otranto). The
_Albanians_ or _Skiptars_ form a people whose linguistic affinities are
little known. Two sub-divisions are recognised, formed of very distinct
elements from the physical point of view: the _Gegs_ and the _Mirdites_
on the north, the _Tosks_ on the south. Albanian colonies are found in
Greece, in the south of Italy (Basilicata, Calabria, and Sicily), and
Corsica (in _Cardevole_).
[Illustration: /Fig./ 105.--Same subject as Fig. 104, seen in profile.
(_Phot. Bogdanoff, Coll. Mus. of Nat. Hist., Paris._)]
The physical types are very diversified among the Greeks, and still
require to be studied. The Albanians of the north appear to be
connected with the Adriatic or sub-Adriatic race, but nothing is known
about the southern Albanians. The Albanian colonists in Italy and
Corsica have the same physical traits as the surrounding population.
_The peoples speaking Celtic languages_ are divided into two sections
according to dialect: the Gaelic section comprises the Celts of the
north-west of Scotland, the west of Ireland, and the Isle of Man.
The second or Cymric section is composed of the inhabitants of Wales
(_Welsh_ language) and of Brittany (_Bas Breton_). The Cornish
language, spoken two centuries ago in Cornwall, is now a dead language.
The other Celtic dialects are also destined to disappear owing to
the spread of such highly developed and widely known languages as
English and French. There is no “Celtic” type or race. The Gaels of
Scotland, as well as the Irish of Munster, appear to be connected with
the Northern race; the Irish of Connaught present two or three types,
variants of the secondary North-western race, which is predominant
among the Welsh, and which is found again modified in Cornwall and in
Devon (Fig. 92), by side, perhaps, of the remnants of Neolithic types;
and lastly, the Low Bretons belong to the Western race, more or less
intermixed, like the French of the central table-land.[385]
B. AN-ARYAN PEOPLES.
As we have already said, peoples speaking Aryan tongues are not the
only ones to inhabit Europe. We find in it the representatives of other
linguistic families: Basque, Finno-Ugrian, Turkish, Mongolian, Semitic,
etc.
The _Basques_ inhabit the extreme south-west corner of France (in the
department of the Basses Pyrenées) and the adjoining part of Spain,
provinces of Guipuzcoa and Biscay (as far as Bilbao on the west),
and the north of the provinces of Navarre and Alava. The affinities
of their agglutinous language have not yet been clearly determined.
As to their physical type, it is also quite peculiar. Its chief
characteristics, according to Collignon, are its mesocephaly “with a
peculiar swelling in the parietal regions,” conical torso, elongated
and pointed face, etc. In the main this type approaches most nearly to
the Littoral race, and is met with, in a pure state, especially among
the French Basques.[386]
_Peoples speaking the Finno-Ugrian dialects._--_The Magyars_ or
_Hungarians_[387] occupy in a compact mass, four millions and a half
in number, the plain of Hungary. They represent 43 per cent. of the
population of this State. There may still be distinguished among
them traces of the ancient divisions into various tribes (_Haiduks_,
_Yazigs_, _Kumans_, etc.). The eastern portion of Transylvania is
also inhabited by a division of the Magyars, the _Szeklers_, who
differ by their mesocephalic skull from the other Hungarians, who are
brachycephalic for the most part. The _Western Finns_ are divided
into Finns properly so called or Suomi, Baltic Finns, and Karelians.
The Suomi (in the singular Suomalaiset) occupy Finland, with the
exception of certain points on the coast, taken by the Swedes; they are
sub-divided into several small sections, according to their dialects:
_Savolaks_, _Tavasts_, _Kvénes_ or _Kvanes_. The latter inhabit the
north of Sweden. The _Baltic Finns_, formerly very numerous, are
reduced to two peoples, the _Esthonians_ or _Esths_ of the Russian
provinces of Esthonia and Livonia, with the adjacent islands (Ösel,
Dago, etc.); and the _Livonians_, quartered to the number of 2000
at the extremity of the north coast of Kurland; they have entirely
disappeared from Livonia, from which they derive their name. The
_Karelians_ are scattered in groups, more or less important, over
the south-east of Finland, in the Russian province (“government”) of
Olonetsk, and in the north-west of the province of Archangel. Isolated
groups of this population found on the plateau of Valdai and almost
in the heart of Russia (in the north of the province of Tver) are
indications of the ancient expansion of the western Finns towards the
east. We must connect with the Karelians the _Veps_ (to the south
of Lake Onega) and the _Chukhontsi_, Finns of the province of St.
Petersburg, descendants of the ancient Ingrians and Chudes whose name
recurs often in Russian chronicles and legends.[388]
[Illustration: /Fig./ 106.--Cheremiss of Ural Mountains.
(_Phot. Sommier._)]
The 42nd degree of longitude east of Greenwich seems to mark the
boundary between the western Finns and the following group, that of
the _eastern Finns_ or _Ugrians_. These are tribes dispersed in the
north-east of Russia, for the most part mixed with the Russians, and
Russianised in language, religion, and customs. We may distinguish
among them three principal divisions. The northern division comprises
the _Zyrians_, reduced to some thousand families, buried in the midst
of the Russian population, in the eastern part of the provinces of
Archangel and Vologda (between the 60th degree of latitude north and
the polar circle). The middle division is composed of two neighbouring
peoples, _Votiaks_ and _Permiaks_, dwelling among the Russians, in
more or less considerable islets in the space comprised between the
Vetluga and the Kama, tributaries of the Volga. More to the south,
in the middle basin of the Volga, as far as about the 50th degree of
north latitude, we find the southern group of the Ugrians composed
of _Cheremiss_ (Fig. 106) on the left bank of the upper Volga and of
_Mordva_ or _Mordvinians_ on both banks of the middle Volga in numerous
islets between the 42nd and 54th degree east longitude.[389]
We may class among the Finns, for linguistic reasons, three peoples
differing from each other as much as they are distinguished from the
groups I have just mentioned. These are the Lapps, the Samoyeds, and
the Ostiaks. The Lapps occupy the most northern region of Sweden and
Norway (_Scandinavian Lapps_), as well as the north of Finland and the
Kola peninsula in the north of Russia (_Russian Lapps or Lopari_). They
appear to have been formerly spread much more to the south of their
present habitat. They are the shortest in stature of all Europeans, and
almost the most brachycephalic (see Appendices I. and II.). One portion
only of the _Samoyeds_ inhabits Europe, on the east of the river Mezen
and to the north of the polar circle; the rest wander about Siberia
between the Arctic Ocean and the lower Obi. Their neighbours on the
south, the _Ostiaks_, extend from the middle Obi to the Ural mountains,
over which they pass to occupy several points in Europe. The Ostiaks of
both slopes of the Urals bear also the name of _Vogules_ or _Manz_.[390]
As regards physical type there is a great difference between the
western and the eastern Finns. The former are the offspring of the
union of the Northern or Sub-northern race with the Eastern race,
somewhat tall, mesocephalic, and light-complexioned, while the
latter belong for the most part to a special Ugrian race, short,
dolichocephalic, dark, with slightly Mongoloid face.
For the other Eurasian peoples (_Turks_, _Armenians_, _Gypsies_,
_Jews_, etc.), see the following chapter.
[Illustration: /Fig./ 107.--Kundrof Tatar (Turkoman) of Astrakhan, with
cap.
(_Phot. Sommier._)]
[Illustration: /Fig./ 108.--The same in profile, with skull-cap, which
is never removed, worn under the cap.
(_Phot. Sommier._)]
C. CAUCASIAN PEOPLES.[391]
All who have seen the
ethnographical maps of the Caucasus must have been struck by the motley
appearance which they present; fifty various tribes may in fact be
counted in this isthmus, the area of which is less than that of Spain.
I shall speak here only of the _Caucasians properly so called_--that
is to say, of the peoples who dwell only in the Caucasus, putting on
one side all others (Iranians, Europeans, Turks, Mongols, Semites,
etc.) who have overflowed into this country from the adjacent regions.
The _Caucasians_ are sub-divided into four linguistic or ethnic groups:
the Cherkess (on the north-west of the Caucasian range), the Lesgian
Chechen (on the north-east of the range), the Kartvels or Georgians
(on the south-west of the range), and the Ossets (in the centre of the
range on both slopes). The last, by their language, are the nearest
to the Iranians and the Armenians, but the three other groups form a
perfect linguistic unit. The dialects which they speak preserve the
impress of a common origin and form a family apart which has nothing in
common with any other.
The _Cherkess_ or _Circassians_, until the middle of this century,
inhabited all the western part of Ciscaucasia; but, since the conquest
of their country by the Russians, they have emigrated _en masse_ into
the Ottoman empire. At the present day there are only a few remnants
of them in the Caucasus. Principal tribes, _Abkhazians_, _Adighé_ or
_Cherkess_ (Circassians) properly so called, _Kabards of the plain_,
_Abadzeh_, _Chapsugh_, etc.
The _Chechen-Lesgians_ are divided, as the name implies, into two
groups: the Chechen (with the _Ingushes_, the _Kists_, etc.) of the
upper basin of the Terek, who have long been considered as a population
apart (Figs. 110 and 111), and the _Lesgians_ of Daghestan. These
last are sub-divided into five great sections, according to their
dialects: (1) The _Avars-Andi_, with the _Dido_, whose language
tends to preponderate owing to the historic part played by the tribe
of the Avars, to which belonged the famous Shamil, the hero of the
Caucasus, whose memory still lives. (2) The _Dargha_ in the centre of
_Daghestan_, the best known tribe of which is that of the Kubachi,
living in little houses piled one above the other on the sides of the
mountains. (3) The _Kurines_ of the Samur basin, with the _Tsakhurs_
(Tabassaurans, etc.). (4) The _Laks_ or _Kazi-Kumyks_, with which are
connected lesser known tribes, like the _Agul_, the _Budukh_, and the
_Khinalugh_, whose language is distinct from all the other dialects
of Daghestan. (5) The _Udes_, an ancient Christian tribe converted to
Islamism, of which there remain but 750 individuals still acquainted
with their mother-tongue (district of Nukha, province of Elisabetpol).
[Illustration: /Fig./ 109.--Georgian Imer of Kutais.
(_Phot. from Coll. of Author._)]
The _Kartvels_, _Karthli_ or _Georgians_, who alone of the Caucasians
possess a special mode of writing, and a literature, are divided
into three linguistic sections: (1) _Gruzin_, which comprises the
_Georgians properly so called_ of the plains of the province of Tiflis,
_Georgians of the mountains_ (_Khevsurs_, _Pshavs_, and _Toushs_,
21,300 in all), and the _Imers_ (Fig. 109) with the _Gurians_. (2) The
_Mingrelian_ section of people living more to the west, composed of
the _Mingrelians_ of the Kutais country and the _Lazes_ of the Batum
circle. (3) The _Swan_ section, comprising the tribe of _Swanet_ or
Swanetians, driven back into the unhealthy regions of the province of
Kutais, where the race degenerates; cretins and those afflicted with
goitre form a third part of the population.
[Illustration: /Fig./ 110.--Chechen of Daghestan.
(_Phot. Chantre._)]
The _Ossets_, while speaking a language which (in the _Digorian_
dialect) is nearly allied to Iranian, have nevertheless much in common
with the other Caucasians, from whom they are distinguished perhaps by
the frequent occurrence of fair hair (10 per cent.) and light eyes (29
per cent.); more frequent than among all the other Caucasian peoples,
the Imers, the Lesgi-Dido, and the Chechen excepted. But figures are
still too inadequate in regard to the number of subjects with dark hair
and eyes (51 and 53 per cent.) to enable us to affirm, as all authors
from Am. Marcellinus to our own days have done, that the Ossets are a
people of fair race. They are above the average in stature (1 m. 68),
and sub-brachycephalic (ceph. ind. on the liv. sub. 82.6).
As to the somatic characters of the other Caucasians, we know little
of those of the Cherkess (sub-brachycephalic, of medium height), but
we are better informed in regard to the Lesgians and the Kartvel.
The contrast between the two groups is striking. The Lesgians are
very brachycephalic (see Appendix II.), especially the tribes of the
east; their stature is fairly high. To these characters are united
others which, in their totality, produce the most singular effect;
the prominent nose, straight or curved, recalls the Semites, while
the projecting cheek-bones, broad face, and angles of the lower jaw
directed outward, suggest the Mongols; lastly, the whole aspect becomes
still more odd, owing to the light-grey or greenish eyes, and fair or
chestnut hair, so common among the Lesgians (Figs. 110 and 111).
[Illustration: /Fig./ 111.--Same as Fig. 110, seen in profile.
(_Phot. Chantre._)]
Quite different are the characters of the Kartvel. In the first place,
they form a less homogeneous group; we must distinguish in it between
the eastern and the western Georgians. The former (Gruzins) are true
brachycephals, though in a lesser degree than the Lesgians, while
the latter (Mingrelians, Imers) are distinguished from all the other
Caucasians by the elongated form of the head (see Appendix II.). The
stature varies in harmony with the cranial forms; the Kartvel tribes
with rounded heads have the shortest stature, and the dolichocephalic
tribes the highest; light hair is less common in the two groups than
among the Lesgians, but we find among the Georgians in general a great
number of subjects in whom the iris has a particular yellow colour, a
grey or greenish yellow. The Gruzins have a rather rounded face and
broad nose, while the Imers have an elongated visage, thin nose, tight
lips, pointed chin (Fig. 109); their physiognomy reminds one of a
goat’s head, according to Pantiukhof, who considers the Imers to be the
purest representatives of the primitive Kartvels.[392]