on a greater scale. Some went east, into the remotest fastnesses of
Turkestan, some perhaps as far as the head waters of the Yenesei and
the region around Minutsinsk, while others passed on to the Iranian
plateau. This last group we hear of about 2100 /B.C./ as Kassites, and
a few centuries later they conquered Mesopotamia.
Those who went westward seem to have destroyed the Tripolje culture and
driven off its people, unless, indeed, they had already been driven
away by the drought. The bands of steppe-folk divided, some passing
north of the Carpathians and some going south by the shores of the
Euxine. This last group crossed the Danube, and skirting the Balkan
mountains arrived at the east end of Thrace. Here they divided, one
band passing to the west by the shores of the Ægean and then southwards
to Thessaly, where they frightened the inhabitants, who termed them
Centaurs. The other band crossed the Hellespont, destroyed Hissarlik
II., and passed on into the Anatolian plain, where in due course they
organised the native Alpine population into the Hittite empire.
It is not so easy to follow the group which passed north of the
Carpathians, but they seem to have followed the line of sandy heaths
across Galicia into Silesia, then some, probably, entered Hungary
through the Moravian gate, while others pushed into Bohemia. These last
found there people who were either refugees from the Tripolje area or
folk closely allied to them. These people, who had been accustomed
to a type of cord vase, had found in Bohemia bell-beakers, which had
arrived there via Italy from Spain. From a combination of both types of
ware they had evolved the northern beaker. When the Nordic steppe-folk
arrived from Silesia these Beaker-folk left, and passed northwards
between the Rhine and the Weser, some going to Jutland and some to
Holland. A few of the latter found a refuge in Great Britain.
In Central Europe, in the district we have called the Celtic cradle, we
find two cultures growing up, one consisting of Alpine peasants under
Nordic lords, which prevailed in the mountain zone; the other, more
truly Nordic, and still pastoral and perhaps nomadic, was limited to
the Hungarian plain. After a short interval of interruption, trading
was resumed with their Italian neighbours by way of Fiume.
It is about this time that the Nordic steppe-folk of Hungary demanded
larger and larger daggers, until at length the earliest leaf-shaped
sword was evolved about 1500 /B.C./ During the following years a few
adventurers passed into the Friuli and the Venetian lands, perhaps
to trade, or perhaps to settle. Others, few in number, seem to have
visited the amber coast of the Baltic, and one, at least, died there
and was buried in Schleswig-Holstein. About 1450 /B.C./ Type B was
evolved and spread over the mountain zone. It was carried by traders or
invaders towards the Baltic, especially to Denmark. Since this type is
found in considerable numbers in the north, and there continued its own
local development for many years, we must admit that these swords were
not taken there by mere adventurers, but by invaders, few in number,
perhaps, who had gone north to Denmark, and perhaps further still, and
settled, perhaps as a governing class, among the people they found
there.
From 1400 to 1300 /B.C./, while Type C was dominant, there appears
to have been little movement. The exodus of fifty years earlier had
perhaps given ample elbow room to those who were left behind. But soon
after 1300 /B.C./ we find two movements, more or less simultaneous, but
going in opposite directions.
The first of these movements seems to have started from the valley
of the Save, perhaps over the Predil pass into the Friuli, but more
probably, as Peet[417] has suggested, through Bosnia and Herzegovina,
and across the Adriatic into Italy. If the latter course were taken,
the invaders landed not far from Ascoli Piceno, and most of them passed
up the valley of the Trento, by the pass through which the Via Salaria
afterwards ran, to the valley of the Velino. Here they settled in that
fold of the Apennines between lakes Trasimene and Fucino, through which
run, in opposite directions, the Velino and the upper waters of the
Tiber. This band of invaders must have been a relatively small one, as
the area they occupied is not extensive and was very sharply defined.
The other movement went to the east, and was probably that great
emigration from Europe to Asia of which dim recollections survived
among the Greeks, and which took the Briges into Asia Minor, where they
became Phrygians.[418] It also carried to Thrace some, at any rate, of
its red-haired people.[419] It was probably some stragglers from this
group who passed southwards, like knight-errants destroying monsters
and punishing evil doers, and who eventually became kings over the
towns of Mycenean Greece. These were known later as Achæans, and may
possibly have included also stragglers from the group which had passed
over to Italy.
It was between 1200 and 1175 /B.C./ that the next movement began, and
this was mainly to the west and north. Some of these invaders left the
Danube basin, crossed the Rhine, and passing through the Belfort gap,
entered France, and over-ran the greater part of that country. Until
the swords of this type have been catalogued and mapped, it will be
impossible to trace their line of advance, or to determine how far they
went. Some of these seem to have passed either down the Rhine or up
the east of France, for they crossed over to Britain, landing for the
most part in the Thames and by the Wash, or else at some intermediate
points. They seem to have settled in the east of England, and
subsequently in Wessex, but later waves of them evidently set out for
Ireland, crossing Wales by the upper Severn valley and the Bala cleft.
A considerable number of these seem to have settled in Ireland.
It was about this time that others set out from Hungary through the
Moravian gate, and while some went northwards, the majority passed
along Galicia, across the Bukovina and Podolia, and arrived at length
by the banks of the Koban. Here they settled for a time, and entered
into trade relations with a humble tribe, living on the southern
slopes of the Caucasus, from whom they learned the knowledge of iron.
Armed with swords with iron blades, they returned to the Danube basin
about 1100 /B.C./, and perhaps worked the iron mines at Gyalar, in
Transylvania. Then they settled in the Hungarian plain and in the north
of the Balkan peninsula. About 1050 /B.C./ a large body of these people
from the Koban passed southwards and descended the Vardar valley. By
degrees they passed thence to Thessaly. Then they began that slow but
steady conquest of the Greek states, which is known as the Dorian
invasion.
A little later, about 1000 /B.C./, the Koban folk, with their iron
swords, began pushing up the Danube, the Drave and the Save. In the
valley of the last they found whole mountains of iron, which they began
to work, and by 900 /B.C./, if not earlier, they had reached Styria and
the Salzkammergut, and were working the salt mines at Hallstatt. It
was, perhaps, earlier than this that they moved up the Danube valley as
far as Ulm and Sigmaringen, and soon after their arrival there quarrels
arose between them and the lords of the mountain zone. It must have
been before 900 /B.C./ that the newcomers destroyed the lake-dwellings
and expelled their inhabitants, who fled from them to the north and
west.
[Illustration: FIG. 25. TYPE G SWORD FROM FINLAND.]
The refugees who went northwards were few in number, though some of
them seem to have fled a long way, perhaps even to Finland. Large
numbers escaped to France, and spread over most of that land except
Brittany and the extreme west. But here they were followed by the men
of the iron sword, who pursued them in every direction, except down the
valley of the Seine.
A great number of these refugees reached Britain, landing mostly at
the mouth of the Thames, and sailing up it as far as Reading. An
important settlement was made at “Old England,” at the mouth of the
Brent, and doubtless elsewhere by the Thames. They advanced across the
south of England, where, as we have seen, some of their predecessors
were living, and settled at All Cannings and doubtless other places in
Wiltshire. They pushed on into South Wales, making settlements on the
open hills above Cardiff. Some of these, too, reached Ireland.
Meanwhile the men of the iron sword, pursuing these refugees, followed
them in every direction across France, except down the valley of the
Seine. They went northwards down the valleys of the Meuse and Moselle,
entered Belgium,[420] and perhaps even entered Denmark. There seems no
evidence, however, that they crossed to Britain.
One further raid was made by the men of the iron sword, and this was
on an extensive scale. Some time after 900 /B.C./ a number of them,
coming from the Save valley, crossed the Predil pass. Some of these
stayed for a time at Santa Lucia Tolmino, in the Isonzo valley,
while the majority proceeded to Cividale in the Friuli plain. They
passed on rapidly to the Po valley, and destroyed the villages of the
Terramara-folk who lived there, expelling the inhabitants as seems to
have been the invariable custom of these men of blood and iron.[421]
The Terramara-folk fled, some to Etruria, others to Taranto and others
again to Rome, where they built a dry terramara on the Palatine
Hill.[422] The iron sword people passed on and settled at the foot of
the Apennines, with their centre at Bologna, introducing into all the
region north-east of the mountains the culture known to archæologists
as that of Villa-nova.[423]
As we have seen in Chapter IV., the Etruscans had been for some little
time settled in Tuscany, where they had established their trading
cities governed by religious magistrates. Before long these Etruscan
Prospectors found themselves face to face with this newly-arrived
war-like people. I have already given my reasons for thinking that
the Villa-nova folk conquered the Etruscans, and that together they
extended their empire, which is said to have reached to Pompeii. They
perhaps succeeded in pressing back the leaf-shaped sword people from
the neighbourhood of Lake Trasimene, but did not apparently succeed at
first in dislodging them from the valley of the Velino.
Thus we see that the leaf-shaped sword folk, mainly the people of the
mountain zone, have at one time or another invaded and in some way
or another conquered nearly all Europe except the Iberian peninsula,
while at the close of the bronze age they arrived as refugees in Celtic
lands. The iron sword folk, the people of the plain, who had learned
the use of iron in the Koban, followed them, making a complete conquest
of Greece, of Italy north of the Apennines, of France all but the west
and the Seine valley, Belgium and perhaps other regions further north.
These people did not conquer Scandinavia, nor did they reach Britain,
at any rate until several more centuries had elapsed.
/Chapter XII/
THE ARYAN CRADLE
During the middle half of the nineteenth century the minds of many
European savants were focussed upon what was termed the Aryan
hypothesis, which was investigated with more enthusiasm than discretion
by comparative philologists in England and France, and with still
greater vigour in Germany. Since then the general conclusions of these
mid-nineteenth century speculations have been current among politicians
and journalists, who talk glibly about Teutons and Celts and Slavs,
and that medley of races and peoples, who still continue to use in a
modified form the speech imposed upon them by their Roman conquerors,
and are therefore called the Latin race. Such terms, meaningless
though they are as applied to nations, have become popular during the
last half century, with disastrous results, since they have been used
to emphasise certain divisions which were growing up among European
peoples, and which in their turn did much to give rise to the European
war, and are still retarding the Peace for which everyone is longing.
The idea was first put forward in 1786, when Sir William Jones,[424]
in a communication to the Royal Asiatic Society of Bengal, pointed
out the similarities between the Sanskrit, Greek, Latin, German
and Celtic languages, but little progress was made until in 1833-5
Bopp[425] published his comparative grammar. For the next fifty years
the hypothesis grew at a great pace. The world was anxious for a
scientific classification of its peoples, especially of the peoples of
Europe. Men were also enquiring what had happened in this continent
before early Greek legend and literature began to lift the veil. The
sciences of anthropology and prehistoric archæology were in their
infancy, and unable to provide answers to these questions, and the
comparative philologists, from the evidence of language alone, were
prepared to give full and most detailed explanations.
Thus arose the Aryan hypothesis, forced upon an eagerly inquiring
public with great enthusiasm and complete, or almost complete,
agreement. But during the eighties rifts appeared to disturb this
harmony, anthropology and archæology began to claim a hearing, and to
disagree with the conclusions of philology. By 1890 the philological
enthusiasm died out, at least in this country and in France, though for
a time it lingered on in Germany. All those acquainted with the subject
felt that the question needed reconsideration, partly in the light of
more accurate philological study, and especially having regard to the
newer evidence being produced in such quantities by the sciences of
anthropology and prehistoric archæology. The general public, however,
continued to talk and to write, with more confidence than before, of
Teutons, Celts, Slavs and the Latin races.
A word as to the term Aryan. When it was found that Sanskrit was allied
to most of the European languages, it was felt that a term was needed
to describe the group. Bopp, thinking that the German or Teutonic group
was the most westerly, as the Indian dialects were the most easterly,
used the term Indo-Germanic, which had previously been suggested by
Klaproth in 1823.[426] But when it was fully realised that the Celtic
tongues were also included in the group, French and Italian scholars,
who felt that the term German was receiving too much prominence,
suggested the name Indo-European. Neither of these terms is quite
accurate and both are clumsy, so to avoid the latter defect Professor
Max-Müller suggested the term Aryan. This, too, is misleading, for
the Aryas were the noble caste among the Vedic Indians and the early
Persians. The name, however, is convenient, and is still used by
many people, especially in this country. Recently Dr. Giles[427] has
suggested for the original people who spoke these tongues the name of
_Wiros_, as words similar to this, meaning _men_, occur in most of
these languages. The term has much to recommend it, and it will be used
in the following pages for the first users of this speech.
When the connection between these languages was first realised, it was
felt that all the tongues had been derived from a primitive mother
speech, and that this primitive speech must have been spoken originally
by a small group of people, the primitive Aryans, or, as we shall call
them, the Wiros. But owing to loose thinking all the people who speak
these languages to-day, as well as those who have spoken them in the
past, were considered Aryans, and it was assumed that because their
languages were related they were racially identical. As long as this
applied only to European peoples no one raised any protest, but when
Max-Müller asserted that the same blood runs in the veins of English
soldiers as in the veins of the darkest Bengalese,[428] the Nordic
spirit in this country, which, as we have seen, is prone to race
exclusiveness, rose in its wrath, and the whole generalisation was
questioned.
It was then shown that languages could be imposed by conquerors upon
their subjects, and that there were instances on record of the reverse
process taking place, as in the case of the Frankish invaders of Gaul
and the Viking settlers in Normandy. People then, with equal lack of
lucid thinking, ran to the opposite extreme and said, “there is now no
Aryan race, and there never has been one.” To Penka[429] is due the
credit of making the matter clear. He pointed out that Aryan blood is
not co-extensive with Aryan speech. He showed that those who use the
latter are of several distinct anthropological types, but he argued
that the primitive Aryans or Wiros must have been of one type.
Penka’s contention seems eminently reasonable and, one would think,
incontrovertible, for a group of languages, so closely resembling one
another, must have grown up in a somewhat restricted area, among a
people who had, during the formative period of the language, little
intercourse with the outside world. The very conditions which would
produce a specialised type of language, would, we may feel sure, have
produced an equally specialised type of men, that is to say, a race in
the anthropological meaning of the term.
The failure of Penka’s views to carry widespread conviction was, I
am inclined to think, due to the fact that his theory involved the
identification of the primitive Wiros with the Nordic race. There is
really no valid objection to this view, and, as will be seen later,
the evidence which I am adducing points to a similar conclusion. But,
unfortunately, this theory became associated with certain political
opinions, and so became distasteful to those with a different outlook.
The original supporters of the Aryan hypothesis fell so in love with
the languages and with the people who originally developed them, that
they grew to believe that these Wiros were superior creatures, with a
superior tongue, which they had imposed upon an inferior world. All
good things found in the civilisation of Europe were attributed to
them, and they became the super-men. As far as we can ascertain from
the linguistic evidence available they had, it is true, evolved a
language which, owing to its flexibility, was capable of great things,
but it is by no means clear that the higher developments, which some of
the tongues have reached, would have been attained had not the Wiros
mixed with people possessing other ideas and other idioms. The evidence
of linguistic palæontology shows that in material culture they were
very backward, and, as we shall see later on, all the archæological
evidence tends to show that in these respects they were far behind the
peoples whom they conquered, and on whom they imposed their tongue.
Their one important characteristic seems to have been their incapacity
for learning other languages, and so insisting that other folk should
adopt theirs. This may have been due to lack of linguistic ability, or
to an overbearing conceit. Probably it was due to both. The original
Wiros, then, as judged by linguistic evidence, were far from being
super-men.
Another fallacy has been the belief that the Nordic is the superior
person, the “white man” _par excellence_. The Nordic is strong,
robust and courageous, and possesses certain manly qualities which
are much admired; also he has taken care for some thousands of
years to impress upon his neighbours that these are admirable
qualities. The Nordic has also other good points, such as honesty
and a genius for administration, but he is far from possessing a
monopoly of the virtues, and in many respects falls behind members
of the other European races. The works of Gobineau[430] and later of
Madison Grant[431] have enumerated his virtues without defining his
limitations, and no one, so far as I know, has yet written to extol the
excellencies of the Alpine or Mediterranean races, who have contributed
and still contribute much of what is good in the make-up of modern
Europe.
During the latter part of the nineteenth century the Germans were
engaged in making and consolidating their empire, and to do this
they wished to encourage their nationals to believe that Germans,
_qua_ Germans, were the inheritors of many, in fact of most admirable
qualities. As a matter of fact such “patriotic” ideas were current
in most countries, as can be seen by an examination of the school
text-books, especially history books, in use at that time, and
sometimes, too, at the present day. Only in this, as is their wont, the
Germans were very thorough, and they pressed every science and every
hypothesis into their service.
What was read into the hypothesis of Penka, though it does not follow
that he wished it, was that these Wiros or Aryan super-men were the
same as the Nordic super-men, and that their home was in Germany, as
could easily be proved from the pages of Tacitus. It was implied that
from Germany had come all that was Aryan or Nordic or really valuable
in the population of other countries, and that, therefore, the Aryan
Nordic Germans were the salt of the earth. This view, which grew up
insensibly from the hypothesis of Penka and others, was caught hold of
by those who were wishing to transform the peaceful Alpine German into
an aggressive militarist, and in its full absurdity was given to the
world by a renegade Englishman, Herr Houston Chamberlain.[432]
Now, as we have seen, the original Wiros, though they had their good
points, had by no means a monopoly of the virtues, and were enabled to
spread their tongues largely by their incapacity and unwillingness to
learn the speech of others. The Nordic is a picturesque and romantic
figure, with many admirable qualities, but is seldom clever, skilful
with his hands or patient in research. Lastly, an examination of the
physical types, as they exist to-day in Germany, shows us that outside
the former kingdom of Hanover, the Nordic type is rare.[433] There are
probably as many pure Nordics in France, distributed over the northern
departments from Dunkirk almost to the west of Brittany, as will be
found in the German empire. There is this difference only between the
populations of the two countries. In Germany the fair colouring of the
Nordic element seems to be a dominant character over the relatively
dark pigmentation of the Alpine; so we meet with a majority of people
having broad Alpine heads but fair Nordic colouration. In France, on
the other hand, there is a large Mediterranean element, surviving
from neolithic days, and the brunette colouring of this race is more
dominant than the blondness of the Nordic. As all three types have
mingled in France, fair hair is less frequently found among those with
broad heads.
The use made of the Aryan Nordic equation by German political
propagandists has inclined, French and, to some extent, English
writers, to reject this view. This objection has been in a large
measure due to misunderstandings, and in any case it is unscientific to
allow national and political prejudices to influence our opinions on
such questions.
If, then, we agree with Penka that there must have been an original
Aryan race, or, as we shall call them, Wiros, it is important to
ascertain what part of the world it was, from which these languages
spread to Ireland and Bengal. This is the problem of the Aryan cradle.
In the early days of the hypothesis students noted that Sanskrit was
the most archaic of the languages, and forgetting that the Vedic hymns
were composed 1000 or 1500 /B.C./, while the earliest Greek literature
dated from 800 or 900 /B.C./, there was a tendency to derive the whole
group from North India.[434] Subsequently, when the close connection
between Sanskrit and Zend, the ancient Persian tongue, was recognised,
and it was realised that the Vedic folk were recent arrivals in the
Punjab when the Vedic hymns were being composed, the Aryan cradle was
removed to the region watered by the Oxus and the Jaxartes, and the
slopes of the Hindu Kush.[435]