THE CAUCASIC PEOPLES
General Considerations--Constituent Elements--Past and Present
Range--Cradle-land: Africa north of Sudan--Quaternary
"Sahara"--Early European and Mauretanian types--The _Guanches_,
Types and Affinities--Origin of the European Brachycephals--
Summary of Orthodox View--Linguistic Evidence--The _Basques_--
The _Iberians_--The _Ligurians_ in Rhineland and Italy.
Sicilian Origins--_Sicani_; _Siculi_--_Sard_ and _Corsican_
Origins--Ethnological Relations in Italy--Sergi's Mediterranean
Domain--Range of the Mediterraneans--The _Pelasgians_--
Theory of pre-Hellenic Pelasgians--Pelasgians and Mykenean
civilisation--Aegean Culture--Other Views--Range of the Hamites in
Africa--The Eastern Hamites--The Western "Moors"--General Hamitic
Type--Foreign Elements in Mauretania--Arab and Berber Contrasts--
The _Tibus_--The Egyptian Hamites--Origins--Theory of Asiatic
Origins--Proto-Egyptian type--Armenoid type--Asiatic influence on
Egyptian Culture--Negroid mixture--The _Fulah_--Other Eastern
Hamites--_Bejas_--_Somals_--Somal Genealogies--The _Galla_--The
_Masai_.
CONSPECTUS.
#Present Range.# _All the extra-tropical habitable lands, except Chinese
empire, Japan, and the Arctic zone; intertropical America, Arabia,
India, and Indonesia; sporadically everywhere._
_Three main types_:--1. _Southern dolichocephals_, #Mediterranean#; 2.
_Northern Dolichocephals_, #Nordic#; 3. _Brachycephals_, #Alpine#.
#Hair#: 1. _Very dark brown or black, wiry, curly or ringletty._ 2.
_Very light brown, flaxen, or red, rather long, straight or wavy, smooth
and glossy._ 3. _Light chestnut or reddish brown, wavy, rather short and
dull. All oval in section; beard of all full, bushy, straight, or wavy,
often lighter than hair of head, sometimes very long._ #Colour#: 1.
_Very variable--white, light olive, all shades of brown and even
blackish (Eastern Hamites and others)._ 2. _Florid._ 3. _Pale white,
swarthy or very light brown._ #Skull#: _1 and 2 long (72 to 79); 3 round
(85 to 87 and upwards); all orthognathous_. _Cheek-bone of all small,
never projecting laterally, sometimes rather high (some Berbers and
Scotch)._ #Nose#, _mostly large, narrow, straight, arched or hooked,
sometimes rather broad, heavy, concave and short_. #Eyes#: 1. _Black or
deep brown, but also blue._ 2. _Mainly blue. 3. Brown, hazel-grey and
black._
#Stature#: 1. _Under-sized (mean 1.630 m. 5 ft. 4 in.), but variable
(some Hamites, Hindus, and others medium or tall)._ 2. _Tall (mean 1.728
m. 5 ft. 8 or 9 in.)._ 3. _Medium (mean 5 ft. 6 in.), but also very tall
(Indonesians 1.750 m. to 1.830 m. 5 ft. 9 to 6 ft.)._ #Lips#, _mostly
rather full and well-shaped, but sometimes thin, or upper lip very long
(many Irish), and under lip pendulous (many Jews)_. #Arms#, _rather
short as compared with Negro_. #Legs#, _shapely, with calves usually
well developed_. #Feet#: _1 and 3 small with high instep_; _2 rather
large_.
#Temperament#: 1 and 3. _Brilliant, quick-witted, excitable and
impulsive; sociable and courteous, but fickle, untrustworthy, and even
treacherous (Iberian, South Italian); often atrociously cruel (many
Slavs, Persians, Semites, Indonesians and even South Europeans);
aesthetic sense highly, ethic slightly developed. All brave,
imaginative, musical, and richly endowed intellectually._ 2. _Earnest,
energetic, and enterprising; steadfast, solid, and stolid; outwardly
reserved, thoughtful, and deeply religious; humane, firm, but not
normally cruel._
#Speech#, _mostly of the inflecting order with strong tendency
towards analytical forms_; _very few stock languages (Aryan,
Ibero-Hamito-Semitic), except in the Caucasus, where stock languages of
highly agglutinating types are numerous, and in Indonesia, where one
agglutinating stock language prevails_.
#Religion#, _mainly Monotheistic, with or without priesthood and
sacrifice (Jewish, Christian, Muhammadan)_; _polytheistic and animistic
in parts of Caucasus, India, Indonesia, and Africa_. _Gross
superstitions still prevalent in many places._
#Culture#, _generally high--all arts, industries, science, philosophy
and letters in a flourishing state now almost everywhere except in
Africa and Indonesia, and still progressive_. _In some regions
civilisation dates from an early period (Egypt, South Arabia, Babylonia;
the Minoan, Hellenic, Hittite, and Italic cultures). Indonesians and
many Hamites still rude, with primitive usages, few arts, no science or
letters, and cannibalism prevalent in some places (Gallaland)._
#Mediterranean type#: _most Iberians, Corsicans, Sards, Sicilians,
Italians_; _some Greeks_; _Berbers and other Hamites_; _Arabs and other
Semites_; _some Hindus_; _Dravidians, Todas, Ainus, Indonesians, some
Polynesians_.
#Nordic type#: _Scandinavians, North-west Germans, Dutch, Flemings, most
English, Scotch, some Irish, Anglo-Americans, Anglo-Australasians,
English and Dutch of S. Africa_; _Thrako-Hellenes, true Kurds, most West
Persians, Afghans, Dards and Siah-post Kafirs_.
#Alpine type#: _most French, South Germans, Swiss and Tyrolese_;
_Russians, Poles, Chekhs, Yugo-Slavs_; _some Albanians and Rumanians_;
_Armenians, Tajiks (East Persians), Galchas_.
* * * * *
It is a remarkable fact that the Caucasic division of the human family,
of which nearly all students of the subject are members, with which we
are in any case, so to say, on the most intimate terms, and with the
constituent elements of which we might consequently be supposed to be
best acquainted, is the most debatable field in the whole range of
anthropological studies. Why this should be so is not at first sight
quite apparent, though the phenomenon may perhaps be partly explained by
the consideration that the component parts are really of a more complex
character, and thus present more intricate problems for solution, than
those of any other division. But to some extent this would also seem to
be one of those cases in which we fail to see the wood for the trees. To
put it plainly, few will venture to deny that the inherent difficulties
of the subject have in recent times been rather increased than
diminished by the bold and often mutually destructive theories, and, in
some instances one might add, the really wild speculations put forward
in the earnest desire to remove the endless obscurities in which the
more fundamental questions are undoubtedly still involved. Controversial
matter which seemed thrashed out has been reopened, several fresh
factors have been brought into play, and the warfare connected with such
burning topics as Aryan origins, Ibero-Pelasgic relations, European
round-heads and long-heads, has acquired renewed intensity amid the
rival theories of eminent champions of new ideas.
The question is not made any simpler by the frequent attacks that have
been directed from more than one quarter against the long-established
Caucasic terminology, and well-supported objections are raised to the
use of such time-honoured names as "Hamitic," "Semitic," and even
"Caucasic" itself. But no really satisfactory substitute for "Caucasic"
has yet been suggested, and it is doubtful if any name could be found
sufficiently comprehensive to include all the races, long-headed and
short-headed, fair and dark, tall and short, that we are at present
content to group under this non-committal heading. Undoubtedly the term
"Caucasic" cannot be defended on ethnical grounds. "Nowhere else in the
world probably is so heterogeneous a lot of people, languages and
religions gathered together in one place as along the chain of the
Caucasus mountains[1000]." But we are no more called upon to believe
that the "Caucasic" peoples originated in the Caucasus, than that the
Semites are all descendants of Shem or Hamites of Ham. "Caucasic" has
one claim that can never be disputed, that of priority, and it would be
well if innovators in these matters were to take to heart the sober
language of Ehrenreich, who reminds us that the accepted names are, what
they ought to be, "purely conventional," and "historically justified,"
and "should be held as valid until something better can be found to take
their place[1001]." It was considerations such as these, weighing so
strongly in favour of current usage, that induced me _stare per vias
antiquas_ in the _Ethnology_, and consequently also in the present work.
Hence, here as there, the Caucasic Division retains its title, together
with those of its main subdivisions--Hamitic, Semitic, Keltic, Slavic,
Hellenic, Teutonic, Iranic, Galchic and so on.
The chief exception is "Aryan," a linguistic expression forced by the
philologists into the domain of Ethnology, where it has no place or
meaning. There was of course a time when a community, or group of
communities, existed probably in the steppe region between the
Carpathians and the Hindu-Kush[1002], by whom the Aryan mother-tongue
was evolved, and who still for a time presented a certain uniformity in
their physical characters, were, in fact, of Aryan speech and type. But
while their Aryan speech persists in endlessly modified forms, they have
themselves long disappeared as a distinct race, merged in the countless
other races on whom they, perhaps as conquerors, imposed their Aryan
language. Hence we can and must speak of Aryan tongues, and of an Aryan
linguistic family, which continues to flourish and spread over the
globe. But of an Aryan race there can be no further question since the
absorption of the original stock in a hundred other races in remote
prehistoric times. Where comprehensive references have to be made, I
therefore substitute for Aryans and Aryan race the expression peoples of
Aryan speech, at least wherever the unqualified term Aryan might lead to
misunderstandings.
This way of looking at the question, which has now become more thorny
than ever, has the signal advantage of being indifferent to any
preconceived theories regarding the physical characters of that long
vanished proto-Aryan race. How great this advantage is may be judged
from the mere statement that, while German anthropologists are still
almost to a man loyal to the traditional view that the first Aryans were
best represented by the tall, long-headed, tawny-haired, blue-eyed
Teutonic barbarians of Tacitus--who, Virchow tells us, have completely
disappeared from sight in the present population--the Italian school, or
at least its chief exponent, Sergi, was equally convinced that the
picture was a myth, that such Aryans never existed, that "the true
primitive Aryans were not long, but round-headed, not fair but dark, not
tall but short, and are in fact to-day best represented by the
round-headed Kelts, Slavs, and South Germans[1003]."
The fact is that the Aryan prototype has vanished as completely as has
the Aryan mother-tongue, and can be conjecturally restored only by
processes analogous to those by which Schleicher and other philologists
have endeavoured with dubious success to restore the organic Aryan
speech as constituted before the dispersion.
But here arises the more important question, by what right are so many
and such diverse peoples grouped together and ticketed "Caucasians"? Are
they to be really taken as objectively one, or are they merely
artificial groupings, arbitrarily arranged abstractions? Certainly this
Caucasic division consists apparently of the most heterogeneous
elements, more so than perhaps any other. Hence it seems to require a
strong mental effort to sweep into a single category, however elastic,
so many different peoples--Europeans, North Africans, West Asiatics,
Iranians and others all the way to the Indo-Gangetic plains and uplands,
whose complexion presents every shade of colour, except yellow, from
white to the deepest brown or even black.
But they are grouped together in a single division, because of certain
common characteristics, and because, as pointed out by Ehrenreich, who
himself emphasises these objections, their substantial uniformity speaks
to the eye that sees below the surface. At the first glance, except
perhaps in a few extreme cases for which it would be futile to create
independent categories, we recognise a common racial stamp in the facial
expression, the structure of the hair, partly also the bodily
proportions, in all of which points they agree more with each other than
with the other main divisions. Even in the case of certain black or very
dark races, such as the Beja, Somali, and a few other Eastern Hamites,
we are reminded instinctively more of Europeans or Berbers than of
negroes, thanks to their more regular features and brighter expression.
"Those who will accept nothing unless it can be measured, weighed, and
numbered, may think perhaps that according to modern notions this appeal
to the outward expression is unscientific. Nevertheless nobody can deny
the evidence of the obvious physical differences between Caucasians,
African Negroes, Mongols, Australians and so on. After all, physical
anthropology itself dates only from the moment when we became conscious
of these differences, even before we were able to give them exact
expression by measurements. It was precisely the general picture that
spoke powerfully and directly to the eye[1004]." The argument need not
here be pursued farther, as it will receive abundant illustration in the
details to follow.
Since the discovery of the New and the Austral Worlds, the Caucasic
division as represented by the chief European nations has received an
enormous expansion. Here of course it is necessary to distinguish
between political and ethnical conquests, as, for instance, those of
India, held by military tenure, and of Australia by actual settlement.
Politically the whole world has become Caucasic with the exception of
half-a-dozen states such as China, Turkey, Japan, Siam, Marocco, still
enjoying a real or fictitious autonomy. But, from the ethnical
standpoint, those regions in which the Caucasic peoples can establish
themselves and perpetuate their race as colonists are alone to be
regarded as fresh accessions to the original and later (historical)
Caucasic domains. Such fresh accessions are however of vast extent,
including the greater part of Siberia and adjoining regions, where Slav
branches of the Aryan-speaking peoples are now founding permanent new
homes; the whole of Australia, Tasmania, and New Zealand, which have
become the inheritance of the Caucasic inhabitants of the British Isles;
large tracts in South Africa, already occupied by settlers chiefly from
Holland and Great Britain; lastly the New World, where most of the
northern continent is settled by full-blood Europeans, mainly British,
French and German, while in the rest (Central and South America) the
Caucasic immigrants (chiefly from the Iberian peninsula) have formed new
ethnical groups by fusion with the aborigines. These new accessions, all
acquired within the last 400 years, may be roughly estimated at about 28
million square miles, which with some 12 millions held throughout the
historic period (Africa north of Sudan, most of Europe, South-West and
parts of Central and South Asia, Indonesia) gives an extent of 40
million square miles to the present Caucasic domain, either actually
occupied or in process of settlement. As the whole of the dry land
scarcely exceeds 52 millions, this leaves not more than about 12
millions for the now reduced domains of all the other divisions, and
even of this a great part (_e.g._ Tibetan table-land, Gobi, tundras,
Greenland) is barely or not at all inhabitable. This, it may be
incidentally remarked, is perhaps the best reply to those who have in
late years given expression to gloomy forebodings regarding the ultimate
fate of the Caucasic races. The "yellow scare" may be dismissed with the
reflection that the Caucasian populations, who have inherited or
acquired nearly four-fifths of the earth's surface besides the absolute
dominion of the high seas, is not destined to be submerged by any
conceivable combination of all the other elements, still less by the
Mongol alone[1005].
Where have we to seek the primeval home of this most vigorous and
dominant branch of the human family? Since no direct evidence can be
cited, the answer necessarily takes the form of a hypothesis, and must
rely mainly on the indirect evidence supplied by our vague knowledge of
geographical conditions in pleistocene times, on past and present
zoological distributions, with here and there, the assistance of a hint
gleaned from archaeological discoveries. We may deal first with the
arguments brought forward in favour of Africa north of Sudan. Here were
found in quaternary times all the physical elements which zoologists
demand for great specialisations--ample space, a favourable climate and
abundance of food, besides continuous land connection at two or three
points across the Mediterranean, by which the pliocene and early
pleistocene faunas moved freely between the two continents.
Many of the speculations on the subject failed to convince, largely
because the writers took, so to say, the ground from under their own
feet, by submerging most of the land under a vast "Quaternary Sahara
Sea," which had no existence, and which, moreover, reduced the whole of
North Africa to a Mauretanian island, a mere "appendix of Europe," as it
is in one place expressly called. Then this inconvenient inland basin
was got rid of, not by an outflow--being on the same level as the
Atlantic, of which it was, in fact figured as an inlet--but by
"evaporation," which process is however somehow confined to this inlet,
and does not affect either the Mediterranean or the Atlantic itself. Nor
is it explained how the oceanic waters were prevented from rushing in
according "as the Sahara sea evaporated to become a desert." The attempt
to evolve a "Eurafrican race" in such an impossible area necessarily
broke down, other endless perplexities being involved in the initial
geological misconception.
Not only was the Sahara dry land in pleistocene times, but it stood then
at a considerably higher altitude than at present, although its mean
elevation is still estimated by Chavanne at 1500 feet above sea-level.
"Quaternary deposits cover wide areas, and were at one time supposed to
be of marine origin. It was even held that the great sand dunes must
have been formed under the sea; but at this date it is scarcely
necessary to discuss such a view. The advocates of a Quaternary Sahara
Sea argued chiefly from the discovery of marine shells at several points
in the middle of the Sahara. But Tournouer has shown that to call in the
aid of a great ocean in order to explain the presence of one or two
shells is a needless expenditure of energy[1006]."
At an altitude of probably over 2000 feet the Sahara must have enjoyed
an almost ideal climate during late pliocene and pleistocene times, when
Europe was exposed to more than one glacial invasion, and to a large
extent covered at long intervals by a succession of solid ice-caps. We
now know that these stony and sandy wastes were traversed in all
directions by great rivers, such as the Massarawa trending south to the
Niger, or the Igharghar[1007] flowing north to the Mediterranean, and
that these now dry beds may still be traced for hundreds of miles by
chains of pools or lakelets, by long eroded valleys and by other
indications of the action of running waters.
Nor could there be any lack of vegetable or animal life in a favoured
region, which was thus abundantly supplied with natural irrigation
arteries, while the tropical heats were tempered by great elevation and
at times by the refreshing breezes from sub-arctic Europe.
From these well-watered and fertile lands, some of which continued even
in Roman times to be the granary of the empire, came that succession of
southern animals--hippopotamus, hyaena, rhinoceros, elephant,
cave-lion--which made Europe seem like a "zoological appendix of
Africa." In association with this fauna may have come man himself, for
although North Africa has not yet yielded evidence of a widespread
culture comparable to that of the Palaeolithic Age in Europe, yet the
negroid characters of the Grimaldi skeletons have been held to prove an
early connection between the opposite shores of the Mediterranean. The
hypothesis of African origin is supported by archaeological evidence of
the presence of early man all over North Africa from the shores of the
Mediterranean through Egypt to Somaliland. Thus one of J. de Morgan's
momentous conclusions was that the existence of civilised men in Egypt
might be reckoned by thousands, and of the aborigines by myriads of
years. These aborigines he identified with the men of the Old Stone Age,
of whom he believed four stations to have been discovered--Dahshur,
Abydos, Tukh, and Thebes[1008].
Of Tunisia Arsene Dumont declared that "the immense period of time
during which man made use of stone implements is nowhere so strikingly
shown." Here some of the flints were found in abundance under a thick
bed of quaternary limestone deposited by the waters of a stream that has
disappeared. Hence "the origin of man in Mauretania must be set back to
a remote age which deranges all chronology and confounds the very fables
of the mythologies[1009]."
The skeleton found in 1914 by Hans Reck at Oldoway (then German East
Africa) was claimed to be of Pleistocene Age, but according to A. Keith
"the evidence ... cannot be accepted as having finally proved this
degree of antiquity[1010]."
The doctrine of the specialisation of the dolichocephalic European types
in Africa, before their migrations northwards, lies at the base of
Sergi's views regarding the African origin of those types. Arguing
against the Asiatic origin of the Hamites, as held by Prichard, Virchow,
Sayce and others, he points out that this race, scarcely if at all
represented in Asia, has an immense range in Africa, where its several
sub-varieties must have been evolved before their dispersion over a
great part of that continent and of Europe. Then, regarding Hamites and
Semites as essentially one, he concludes that Africa is the cradle
whence this primitive stock "spread northwards to Europe, where it still
persists, especially in the Mediterranean and its three principal
peninsulas, and eastwards to West Asia[1011]."
The theory of an African cradle for the dolichocephalic Mediterranean
type does not lack supporters, but when, relying on the undeniable
presence of brachycephals, some writers would derive the Alpine type
from the same area, the larger aspect of continental migrations appears
to be overlooked (see pp. 451-2 below). To constitute a distinct race,
says Zaborowski, a wide geographical area is needed, such as is
presented by both shores of the Mediterranean "with the whole of North
Africa including the Sahara, which was till lately still thickly
peopled[1012]." Then to the question by whom has this North African and
Mediterranean region been inhabited since quaternary times, he answers
"by the ancestors of our Libyans, Egyptians, Pelasgians, Iberians"; and
after rejecting the Asiatic theory, he elsewhere arrives at "the grand
generalisation that the whole of North Africa, connected by land with
Europe in the Quaternary epoch, formed part of the geographical area of
the ancient white race, of which the Egyptians, so far from being the
parent stem, would appear to be merely a branch[1013]."
Coming to details, Bertholon[1014], from the human remains found by
Carton at Bulla-Regia, determined for Tunisia and surrounding lands two
main long-headed types, one like the Neandertal (occurring both in
Khumeria, and in the stations abounding in palaeoliths), the other like
the later Cro-Magnon dolmen-builders, whom De Quatrefages had already
identified with the tall, long-headed, fair, and even blue-eyed Berbers
still met in various parts of Mauretania, and formerly represented in
the Canary Islands[1015]. Bertholon agrees with Collignon that the
Mauretanian megalith-builders are of the same race as those of Europe,
and besides the two long-headed races describes (1) a short
round-headed type in Gerba Island and East Tunisia[1016] representing
the Libyans proper, and (2) a blond type of the Sahel, Khumeria, and
other parts, whom he identifies with the Mazices of Herodotus, with the
"Afri," whose name has been extended to the whole continent, and the
blond Getulians of the Aures Mountains.
It has been objected that, as established by de Lapouge and Ripley,
there are three distinct ethnical zones in Europe:--(1) Nordic: the
tall, fair, long-headed northern type, commonly identified by the
Germans with the race represented by the osseous remains from the
"Reihengraeber," _i.e._ the "Germanic," which the French call Kymric or
Aryan, for which de Lapouge reserves Linne's _Homo europaeus_, and to
which Ripley applies the term "Teutonic," because the whole combination
of characters "accords exactly with the descriptions handed down to us
by the ancients. Such were the Goths, Ostrogoths, Visigoths, Vandals,
Lombards, together with the Danes, Norsemen, Saxons.... History is thus
corroborated by natural science." (2) Mediterranean: the southern zone
of short, dark, long-heads, _i.e._ the primitive element in Iberia,
Italy, South France, Sicily, Corsica, Sardinia, and Greece, called
Iberians by the English, and identified by many with the Ligurians,
Pelasgians, and allied peoples, grouped together by Ripley as
Mediterraneans[1017]. (3) Alpine: the central zone of short,
medium-sized round-heads with light or chestnut hair, and gray or hazel
eye, de Lapouge's and Ripley's _Homo alpinus_, the Kelts or Kelto-Slavs
of the French, the Ligurians or Arvernians of Beddoe and other English
writers. Here belong the tall Armenoids, the Armenians being descendants
of the Hittites.
The question is, Can all these have come from North Africa? We have
seen that this region has yielded the remains of one round-headed and
two long-headed prehistoric types. Henri Malbot pointed out that, as far
back as we can go, we meet the two quite distinct long-headed Berber
types, and he holds that this racial duality is proved by the megalithic
tombs (dolmens) of Roknia between Jemmapes and Guelma, possibly some
4000 or 5000 years old. The remains here found by L. L. C. Faidherbe
belong to two different races, both dolichocephalic, but one tall, with
prominent zygomatic arches and very strong nasal spine (it reads almost
like the description of a brawny Caledonian), the other short, with
well-balanced skull and small nasal spine[1018]. The earliest (Egyptian)
records refer to brown and blond populations living in North Africa some
5000 years ago, and it has been claimed that the raw materials, so to
say, were here to hand both of the fair northern and dark southern
European long-heads.
These different races were represented even amongst the extinct Guanches
of the Canary Islands, as shown by a study of the 52 heads procured in
1894 by H. Meyer from caves in the archipelago[1019]. Three distinct
types are determined: (1) Guanche, akin to the Cro-Magnon, tall (5 ft. 8
in. to 6 ft. 2 in.), robust, dolicho (78), low, broad face; large eyes,
rather short nose; fair, reddish or light chestnut hair; skin and eyes
light; ranged throughout the islands, but centred chiefly in Tenerife;
(2) "_Semitic_," short (5 ft. 4 or 5 in.), slim, narrow mesocephalic
head (81), narrow, long face, black hair, light brown skin, dark eyes;
range, Grand Canary, Palma, and Hierro; (3) _Armenoid_, akin to von
Luschan's pre-Semitic of Asia Minor; shorter than 1 and 2; very short,
broad, and high skull (hyperbrachy, 84); hair, skin and eyes very
probably of the West Asiatic brunette type; range, mainly in Gomera, but
met everywhere. Many of the skulls had been trepanned, and these are
brought into direct association with the full-blood Berbers of the
Aures Mts. in Algeria, who still practise trepanning for wounds,
headaches, and other reasons. This type is scarcely to be distinguished
from Lapouge's short brown _Homo alpinus_, which dates from the Stone
Ages, and is found in densest masses in the Central Alpine regions, but
the true Armenoids are differentiated by their taller stature[1020].
How numerous were the inhabitants of France at that time may be inferred
from the long list of no less than 4000 neolithic stations given for
that region by Ph. Salmon. Of the 688 skulls from those stations
measured by him, 57.7 per cent. are classed as dolicho, 21.2 as
brachycephalic, and 21.1 as intermediate. This distinguished
palethnologist regards the intermediates as the result of crossings
between the two others, and of these he thinks the first arrivals were
the round-heads, who ranged over a vast area between Brittany, the
Channel, the Pyrenees, and the Mediterranean, 60 per cent. of the graves
hitherto studied containing skulls of this type[1021]. Belgium also,
where a mixture of long- and round-heads is found amongst the men of
Furfooz, must be included in this neolithic brachy domain, which can be
traced as far westward as the British Isles[1022]. Attempts have been
made, as indicated above, to derive these brachycephals, as well as the
dolichocephals, from North Africa, in accordance with the view that the
latter region was the true centre of evolution and of dispersion for all
the main branches of the Caucasic family, but this theory has few
supporters at the present time. Sergi recognised the Asiatic origin of
the neolithic round-heads and regarded them as "peaceful
infiltrations[1023]," forerunners of the great invasions of the later
Metal Ages. Verneau points out[1024] that when all the neolithic
stations in which brachycephalic skulls have been discovered are plotted
out on a map of Europe it is easy to recognise a current running almost
directly from east to west. Moreover towards the west this current
divides, being clearly separated by zones of dolichocephaly.
Evidence of the presence in early times of tall blond peoples in Africa,
side by side with a short dark population, and of brachycephals together
with dolichocephals, proves that even in the Stone Age ethnic mixtures
had already taken place, and racial purity--if indeed it ever
existed--must be sought for in still remoter periods.
With Sergi's view which traces the neolithic inhabitants of the northern
shores of the Mediterranean (Iberians, Ligurians, Messapians, Siculi and
other Itali, Pelasgians), to North Africa, most anthropologists
agree[1025]. Also that all or most of these were primarily of a dark
(brown), short, dolicho type, which still persists both in South Europe
and North Africa, and in fact is the race which Ripley properly calls
"Mediterranean," although in the west they almost certainly ranged into
Brittany and the British Isles. But there are some who hold that the
migration was in the opposite direction, and derive the North African
branch from Europe, rather than the European branches from Africa.
"Anthropologists who have specially studied the question of the Berbers
or Kabyles have concluded that they are descendants of prehistoric
European invaders who occupied the tracts that suited them best[1026]."
In France the neolithic "Mediterranean type" has been regarded as
lineally descended from palaeolithic predecessors _in situ_[1027]. Some
would even go further still, and claim Europe as the place of origin not
only of the Mediterranean but also of the Alpine and Northern branches.
"The so-called three races of Europe are in the main the result of
variation from a common European stock, a variation due to isolation and
natural selection[1028]."
Without making any claim to finality the following perhaps best
represents orthodox opinion at the present time. It may be assumed that
man evolved somewhere in Southern Asia in pliocene times, and that the
early groups possessed a tendency to variability which was directed to
some extent by geographical conditions and became fixed by isolation.
The tall fair blue-eyed dolichocephals (Northern Race) and the short
dark dolichocephals (Mediterranean Race) may be regarded as two
varieties of a common stock, the former having their area of
characterisation in the steppes north of the plateaus of Eur-Asia, and
migrating eastwards and westwards as the country dried after the last
glacial phase. The southern branch, entering East Africa from Southern
Asia, spread all over North Africa; those in the east were the archaic
Egyptians; to the west were the Libyans whose descendants are the
Berbers; those who crossed the Mediterranean formed the European
branches of the Mediterranean race. With regard to the third type, while
the central plateaus of Asia were the centre of dispersal for the true
Mongols the western plateaus were the area of characterisation of a
non-Mongolian brachycephalic race, which includes short and tall
varieties. This is the Alpine race, which extends from the Hindu Kush to
Brittany, and formerly spread further westwards into the British
Isles[1029].
The problem of European origins has often in the past been obscured
rather than enlightened by an appeal to linguistics, but linguistic
factors cannot altogether be ignored. No doubt the earliest populations
of the Mediterranean shores during the Stone Age spoke non-Aryan
languages, but it is only here and there that traces--mostly
indecipherable--can be discovered. On the African side we have the
Berber language still in its full vigour; and apparently little changed
for thousands of years. But in Europe the primitive tongues have
everywhere been swept away by the Aryan (Hellenic, Italic, Keltic)
except in the region of the Pyrenees. In Italy Etruscan is the only
language which can with safety be called non-Aryan[1030], though the
place of Ligurian is still under dispute[1031]. Of Pelasgian, nothing
survives except the statement of Herodotus, a dangerous guide in this
matter, that it was a barbaric tongue like the peoples themselves[1032],
but Ridgeway considers it Indo-European[1033]. Further east, in Asia
Minor, neither Karian inscriptions and glosses nor occasional
Lydian[1034] and Mysian glosses afford any safe basis for establishing
relationships[1035]; the fuller evidence of Lycian leaves its position
indeterminate[1036] and the Cretan script is still undeciphered[1037].
But in Iberia besides the Iberian inscriptions, which, so far, remain
indecipherable[1038], there survives the Basque of the western Pyrenees,
which beyond question represents a form of speech which was current in
the peninsula in pre-Aryan times, and on the assumption of a common
origin of the populations on both sides of the Strait of Gibraltar might
be expected to show traces of kinship with Berber. In a posthumous work
on this subject[1039], the eminent philologist G. von der Gabelenz goes
much further than mere traces, and claims to establish not only phonetic
and verbal resemblances, but structural correspondences, so that his
editor Graf von der Schulenberg was satisfied as to the relationship of
the two languages[1040]. This conclusion has not, however, met with
general acceptance[1041] and the affinities of Basque with Finno-Ugrian
cannot be overlooked[1042]. A study of the physical features of the
modern Basques adds complexity to the problem. Most observers are agreed
that a distinct Basque type exists, and this physical and linguistic
singularity has led to various more or less fanciful theories
"connecting the Basques with every outlandish language and bankrupt
people under the sun[1043]," while G. Herve[1044] would regard them as
forming by themselves a separate ethnic group, "a fourth European race."
On the other hand Feist[1045] has grounds for claiming that the Basques
are not, in anthropological respects, essentially different from their
Spanish or French neighbours (p. 357) and Jullian[1046] denies them more
than a superficial unity. These apparently conflicting opinions are
reconciled by the conclusions of R. Collignon[1047], himself one of the
best authorities on the subject. "The physical traits characteristic of
the Basques attach them unquestionably ('indiscutablement') to the great
Hamitic branch of the white races, that is to say, to the ancient
Egyptians and to the various groups commonly comprised under the
collective name of Berbers. Their brachycephaly, slight as it is, cannot
outweigh the aggregate of the other characters which they present.... It
is therefore in this direction and not amongst Finns or Esthonians that
is to be sought the parent stem of this paradoxical race. It is North
African or European, assuredly not Asiatic." Collignon's explanation of
the Basque type is that it is a sub-species of the Mediterranean stock
evolved by long-continued and complete isolation, and in-and-in
breeding, primarily engendered by peculiarity of language. The effects
of heredity, aided perhaps by artificial selection, have generated local
peculiarities and have developed them to an extreme[1048].
"The Iberian question," says Rice Holmes, "is the most complicated and
difficult of all the problems of Gallic ethnology[1049]." From the
testimony of Greek and Roman authors, he draws the following
conclusions. "The name Iberian was probably applied, in the first
instance, only to the people who dwelt between the Ebro and the
Pyrenees. The Iberians once occupied the seaboard of Gaul between the
Rhone and the Pyrenees; but Ligurians encroached upon this part of their
territory. They also probably occupied the whole eastern region of the
Spanish peninsula. But," he adds, "we must bear in mind that the data
are both insufficient and uncertain" (p. 288). Later (p. 301), reviewing
the evidence collected by philologists and by craniologists, he
continues, "it seems to me probable that the Iberians comprised both
people who spoke, or whose ancestors had spoken, Basque, and people who
spoke the language or languages[1050] of the 'Iberian' inscriptions;
that to observers who had not learned to measure skulls and knew nothing
of scientific methods, they appeared to be homogeneous; that the
prevailing type was that which is now called Iberian and is seen at its
purest in Sardinia, Corsica and Sicily; but that a certain proportion of
the whole population may have been characterised by physical features
more or less closely resembling those which the modern Basques--French
and Spanish--possess in common, and which, as MM. Broca and Collignon
tell us, distinguish them from all other European peoples. Finally it
seems probable that the true Iberians were the people who spoke the
languages of the inscriptions, and that Basque was spoken by a people
who occupied Spain and Southern Gaul before the Iberians arrived. But
unless and until the key to those appalling inscriptions is found, the
problem will never be solved."
The Ligurian question is still more complex than the Iberian. For while
no facts can be brought forward in direct contradiction of the
assumption that the Iberians were a short dark dolichocephalic
population occupying the Iberian peninsula in the Stone Age, and
speaking a non-Indo-European language, no such generalisations with
regard to race, physical type, culture, geographical distribution or
language are accepted for the Ligurians. Some, with Sergi[1051],
consider the Ligurians merely as another branch of the Mediterranean
race. Others, with Zaborowski[1052], tracing their presence among the
modern inhabitants of Liguria, regard them as representing the small,
dark, brachycephalic race at its purest. While many who recognise the
Ligurians as belonging to the Mediterranean physical type deny their
affinity with the Iberians. Meyer[1053] considers such a relationship
"not improbable," but Dechelette[1054] shows that it is absolutely
untenable on archaeological grounds. The geographical range is equally
uncertain. C. Jullian[1055] distributes Ligurians not only over the
whole of Gaul, but also throughout Western Europe, and attributes to
them all the glories of neolithic civilisation; A. Bertrand[1056] thinks
that they played even in Gaul merely a secondary role; Dechelette[1057],
on archaeological evidence, proves that the Ligurian period was _par
excellence_ the Age of Bronze, and Ridgeway[1058] identifies it with the
Terramare civilisation. Finally, if we follow Sergi, the Ligurians must
have spoken a non-Indo-European language; but the most eminent
authorities are in the main agreed that such traces of Ligurian as
remain show affinities with Indo-European[1059]. With regard to their
physical type Sergi puts forward the view that the true Ligurians were
like the Iberians, a section of the long-headed Mediterranean
(Afro-European) stock. From prehistoric stations in the valley of the Po
he collected 59 skulls, all of this type, and all Ligurian; history and
tradition being of accord that before the arrival of the Kelts this
region belonged to the Ligurian domain. "If it be true that prehistoric
Italy was occupied by the Mediterranean race and by two
branches--Ligurian and Pelasgian--of that race, the ancient inhabitants
of the Po valley, now exhumed in those 59 skulls, were Ligurian[1060]."
These Ligurians have been traced from their homes on the Mediterranean
into Central Europe. From a study of the neolithic finds made in
Germany, in the district between Neustadt and Worms, C. Mehlis[1061]
infers that here the first settlers were Ligurians, who had penetrated
up the Rhone and Saone into Rhineland. In the Kircherian Museum in Rome
he was surprised to find a marked analogy between objects from the
Riviera and from the Rhine; skulls (both dolicho), vases, stone
implements, mill-stones, etc., all alike. Such Ligurian objects, found
everywhere in North Italy, occur in the Rhine lands chiefly along the
left bank of the main stream between Basel and Mainz, and farther north
in the Rheingau at Wiesbaden, and in the Lahn valley.
The Ligurians may of course have reached the Riviera round the coast
from Illiberis and Iberia; but the same race is found as the aboriginal
element also at the "heel of the boot," and in fact throughout the whole
of Italy and all the adjacent islands. This point is now firmly
established, and not only Sergi, but several other leading Italian
authorities hold that the early inhabitants of the peninsula and islands
were Ligurians and Pelasgians, whom they look upon as of the same stock,
all of whom came from North Africa, and that, despite subsequent
invasions and crossings, this Mediterranean stock still persists,
especially in the southern provinces and in the islands--Sicily,
Sardinia, and Corsica. Hence it seems more reasonable to bring this
aboriginal element straight from Africa by the stepping stones of
Pantellaria, Malta, and Gozzo (formerly more extensive than at present,
and still strewn with megalithic remains comparable to those of both
continents), than by the roundabout route of Iberia and Southern
Gaul[1062]. This is a simple solution of the problem, but it is a
question if it is justifiable to extend the name Ligurian to all that
branch of the Mediterranean race which undoubtedly forms the substratum
of population in Italy and parts of Gaul, ignoring the presence or
absence of "Ligurian" culture or traces of Ligurian language.
Dechelette[1063], relying chiefly upon archaeological and cultural
evidence, sums up as follows: we must consider the Ligurians as
Indo-European tribes, whose area of domination had its centre, during
the Bronze Age, in North Italy, and the left bank of the Rhone. They
were enterprising and energetic in agriculture and in commerce. Together
with neighbouring peoples of Illyrian stock they engaged in an indirect
but nevertheless regular trade with the northern regions where amber was
collected. Among the Ligurians, as among the Illyrians and Hyperboreans,
a form of heliolatry was prevalent, popularising the old solar myths in
which the swan appears to have played an important role. Rice
Holmes[1064] defines more closely their geographical range. "Ligurians
undoubtedly lived in South-eastern Gaul, where they were found at least
as far north as Bellegarde in the department of the Ain; and, mingled
more or less with Iberians, in the departments of the Gard, Herault,
Aude and Pyrenees-Orientales. Most probably they had once occupied the
whole eastern region as far north as the Marne, but had been submerged
by Celts: and perhaps they had also pushed westward as far as
Aquitania." He continues, "Were it possible to regard the theory of MM.
d'Arbois de Jubainville and Jullian as more than an interesting
hypothesis, we should have to conclude that the Ligurians were simply
the long-headed and short-headed peoples who, reinforced perhaps from
time to time by hordes of immigrants, had inhabited the whole of Gaul
since the Neolithic Age, and of whom the former, or many of them, were
descended from palaeolithic hunters; in other words that they were the
same people who, after they had been conquered by, or had coalesced
with, the Celtic invaders, called themselves _Celtae_: but to say which
of them were first known as Ligurians or introduced the Ligurian
language would be utterly hopeless. Finally the little evidence we
possess tends to show that the people called Ligurians, when they became
known to the Greek writers who described them, were a medley of
different races."
For Sicily, with which may practically be included the south of Italy,
we have the conclusions of G. Patroni based on years of intelligent and
patient labours[1065]. To Africa this archaeologist traces the
palaeolithic men of the west coast of Sicily and of the caves near
Syracuse explored by Von Adrian[1066]. "We are forced to conclude that
man arrived in Sicily from Africa at a time when the isthmus connecting
the island with that Continent still stood above sea-level. He made his
appearance about the same time as the elephant, whose remains are
associated with human bones especially in the west. He followed the sea
coasts, the shells of which offered him sufficient food[1067]." He was
followed by the neolithic man, whose presence has been revealed by the
researches of Paolo Orsi at the station of Stentinello on the coast
north of Syracuse.
To Orsi is also due the discovery of what he calls the "Aeneolithic
Epoch[1068]," represented by the bronzes of the Girgenti district. Orsi
assigns this culture to the _Siculi_, and divides it into three periods,
while regarding the neolithic men of Stentinello as _pre-Siculi_. But
Patroni holds that the aeneolithic peoples have a right to the historic
name of _Sicani_, and that the true Siculi were those that arrived from
Italy in Orsi's second period. It seems no longer possible to determine
the true relations of these two peoples, who stand out as distinct
throughout early historic times. They are by many[1069] regarded as of
one race, although both ([Greek: Sikanos, Sikelos]) are already
mentioned in the Odyssey. But the evidence tends to show that the Sicani
represent the oldest element which came direct from Africa in the Stone
Age, while the Siculi were a branch of the Ligurians driven in the Metal
Age from Italy to the island, which was already occupied by the Sicani,
as related by Dionysius Halicarnassus[1070]. In fact this migration of
the Siculi may be regarded as almost an historical event, which
according to Thucydides took place "about 300 years before the Hellenes
came to Sicily[1071]." The Siculi bore this national name on the
mainland, so that the modern expression "Kingdom of the Two Sicilies"
(the late Kingdom of Naples) has its justification in the earliest
traditions of the people. Later, both races were merged in one, and the
present Sicilian nation was gradually constituted by further accessions
of Phoenician (Carthaginian), Greek, Roman, Vandal, Arab, Norman, French
and Spanish elements.
Very remarkable is the contrast presented by the conditions prevailing
in this ethnical microcosm and those of Sardinia, inhabited since the
Stone Ages by one of the most homogeneous groups in the world. From the
statistics embodied in R. Livi's _Antropologia Militare_[1072] the
Sards would almost seem to be cast all in one mould, the great bulk of
the natives having the shortest stature, the brownest eyes and hair, the
longest heads, the swarthiest complexion of all the Italian populations.
"They consequently form quite a distinct variety amongst the Italian
races, which is natural enough when we remember the seclusion in which
this island has remained for so many ages[1073]." They seem to have been
preserved as if in some natural museum to show us what the Ligurian
branch of the Mediterranean stock may have been in neolithic times. Yet
they were probably preceded by the microcephalous dwarfish race
described by Sergi as one of the early Mediterranean stocks. Their
presence in Sardinia has now been determined by A. Niceforo and E. A.
Onnis, who find that of about 130 skulls from old graves thirty have a
capacity of only 1150 c.c. or under, while several living persons range
in height from 4 ft. 2 in. to 4 ft. 11 in. Niceforo agrees with Sergi in
bringing this dwarfish race also from North Africa[1074].
With remarkable cranial uniformity, similar phenomena are presented by
the Corsicans who show "the same exaggerated length of face and
narrowness of the forehead. The cephalic index drops from 87 and above
in the Alps to about 75 all along the line. Coincidently the colour of
hair and eyes becomes very dark, almost black. The figure is less amply
proportioned, the people become light and rather agile. It is certain
that the stature at the same time falls to an exceedingly low level:
fully 9 inches below the average for Teutonic Europe," although "the
people of Northern Africa, pure Mediterranean Europeans, are of medium
size[1075]."
In the Italian peninsula Sergi holds not only that the aborigines were
exclusively of Ligurian, _i.e._ Mediterranean stock, but that this stock
still persists in the whole of the region south of the Tiber, although
here and there mixed with "Aryan" elements. North of that river these
elements increase gradually up to the Italian Alps, and at present are
dominant in the valley of the Po[1076]. In this way he would explain
the rising percentage of round-heads in that direction, the Ligurians
being for him, as stated, long-headed, the "Aryans" round-headed.
Similarly Beddoe, commenting on Livi's statistics, showing predominance
of tall stature, round heads, and fair complexion in North Italy, infers
"that a type, the one we usually call the Mediterranean, does really
predominate in the south, and exists in a state of comparative purity in
Sardinia and Calabria; while in the north the broad-headed Alpine type
is powerful, but is almost everywhere more or less modified by, or
interspersed with other types--Germanic, Slavic, or of doubtful
origin--to which the variations of stature and complexion may probably
be, at least in part, attributed[1077]."
Similar relations prevail in the Balkan peninsula, where the
Mediterranean stock is represented by the "Pelasgic[1078]" substratum.
Invented, as has been said, for the purpose of confounding future
ethnologists, these Pelasgians certainly present an extremely difficult
racial problem, the solution of which has hitherto resisted the combined
attacks of ancient and modern students. When Dionysius tells us bluntly
that they were Greeks[1079], we fancy the question is settled off-hand,
until we find Herodotus describing them a few hundred years earlier as
aliens, rude in speech and usages, distinctly not Greeks, and in his
time here and there (Thrace, Hellespont) still speaking apparently
non-Hellenic dialects[1080]. Then Homer several centuries still earlier,
with his epithet of [Greek: dioi], occurring both in the _Iliad_ and
the _Odyssey_[1081], exalts them almost above the level of the Greeks
themselves. It would seem, therefore, almost impossible to discover a
key to the puzzle, one which will also fit in both with Sergi's
Mediterranean theory, and with the results of recent archaeological
researches in the Aegean lands. The following hypothesis is supported by
a certain amount of evidence. If the pre-Mykenaean culture revealed by
Schliemann and others in the Troad, Mykenae, Argos, Tiryns, by Evans and
others in Crete, by Cesnola in Cyprus, be ascribed to a pre-Hellenic
rather than to a proto-Hellenic people, then the classical references
will explain themselves, while this pre-Hellenic race will be readily
identified with the Pelasgians, as this term is understood by Sergi.
It is, I suppose, universally allowed that Greece really was peopled
before the arrival of the Hellenes, which term is here to be taken as
comprising all the invading tribes from the north, of which the Achaeans
were perhaps the earliest. On their arrival the Hellenes therefore found
the land not only inhabited, but inhabited by a cultured people more
civilised than themselves, who could thus be identified with Sergi's
Pelasgian branch of the Mediterranean or Afro-European stock, whom the
proto-Hellenes naturally regarded as their superiors, and whom their
first singers also naturally called [Greek: dioi Pelasgoi][1082]. But in
the course of a few centuries[1083] these Pelasgians became Hellenised,
all but a few scattered groups, which lagging behind in the general
social progress are now also looked upon as barbarians, speaking
barbaric tongues, and are so described by contemporary historians. Then
these few remnants of a glorious but forgotten past are also merged in
the Hellenic stream, and can no longer be distinguished from other
Greeks by contemporary writers. Hence for Dionysius the Pelasgians are
simply Greeks, which in a sense may be true enough. All the
heterogeneous elements have been fused in a single Hellenic nationality,
built upon a rough Pelasgic substratum, and adorned with all the graces
of Hellenic culture.
Now to make good this hypothesis, it is necessary to show, first, that
the Pelasgians were not an obscure tribe, a small people confined to
some remote corner of Hellas, but a widespread nation diffused over all
the land; secondly, that this nation, as far as can now be determined,
presented mental and other characters answering to those of Sergi's
Mediterraneans, and also such as might be looked for in a race capable
of developing the splendid Aegean culture of pre-Hellenic times.
On the first point it has been claimed that the Pelasgians were so
widely distributed[1084] that the difficulty rather is to discover a
district where their presence was unknown. They fill the background of
Hellenic origins, and even spread beyond the Hellenic horizon, to such
an extent that there seems little room for any other people between the
Adriatic and the Hellespont. Thus Ridgeway[1085] has brought together a
good many passages which clearly establish their universal range, as
well as their occupation especially of those places where have been
found objects of Mykenaean and pre-Mykenaean culture, such as engraved
gems, pottery, implements, buildings, inscriptions in pictographic and
syllabic scripts. In Crete they had the "great city of Knossos" in
Homer's time[1086]; not only was Mykenae theirs, but the whole of
Peloponnesus took the name of Pelasgia; the kings of Tiryns were
Pelasgians, and Aeschylus calls Argos a Pelasgian city; an old wall at
Athens was attributed to them, and the people of Attica had from all
time been Pelasgians[1087]. Orchomenus in Boeotia was founded by a
colony from Pelasgiotis in Thessaly; Lesbos also was called Pelasgia,
and Homer knew of Pelasgians in the Troad. Their settlements are further
traced to Egypt, to Rhodes, Cyprus, Epirus--where Dodona was their
ancient shrine--and lastly to various parts of Italy.
Moreover, the Pelasgians were traditionally the civilising element, who
taught people to make bread, to yoke the ox to the plough, and to
measure land. It would appear from these and other allusions that there
were memories of still earlier aborigines, amongst whom the Pelasgians
appear as a cultured people, introducing perhaps the arts and industries
of the pre-Mykenaean Age. But the assumption, based on no known data, is
unnecessary, and it seems more reasonable to look on this culture as
locally developed, to some extent under eastern (Egyptian, Babylonian,
Hittite?) influences[1088]. Here it is important to note that the
Pelasgians were credited with a knowledge of letters[1089], and all this
has been advanced as sufficient confirmation of our second postulate.
Nevertheless it must be acknowledged that the difficulties are not all
overcome by this hypothesis, and the further question of language
divides even its stanchest supporters into opposing groups, for while
Sergi's Mediterraneans necessarily speak a non-Indo-European
language[1090], Ridgeway's Pelasgians speak Aeolic Greek[1091].
The range and importance of the Pelasgians are most strictly limited by
J. L. Myres[1092], who thinks that the Alpine type may even be primitive
in the Morea, Mediterranean man being an intruder from the south merely
fringing the coast and never penetrating inland. The researches of von
Luschan in Lycia support this view[1093], and Ripley's map of the
present inhabitants of the Balkan peninsula shows the "Greek contingent
closely confined to the sea-coast[1094]." Ripley, however, though
carefully avoiding any dragging of "Pelasgians" into the question,
assumes a primitive substratum of Mediterranean type all over Greece.
"The testimony of these ancient Greek crania is perfectly harmonious.
All authorities agree that the ancient Hellenes were decidedly
long-headed, betraying in this respect their affinity to the
Mediterranean Race.... Whether from Attica, from Schliemann's successive
cities excavated upon the site of Troy, or from the coast of Asia
Minor[1095]; at all times from 400 B.C. to the third century of our era,
it would seem proved that the Greeks were of this dolichocephalic
type.... Every characteristic of their modern descendants and every
analogy with the neighbouring populations, leads us to the conclusion
that the classical Hellenes were distinctly of the Mediterranean racial
type, little different from the Phoenicians, the Romans or the
Iberians[1096]." Nevertheless Doerpfeld[1097] claims that there were,
from the first, two races in Greece, a Southern, or Aegean, and a
Northern, who were the Aryan Achaeans of history, and recent
archaeological discoveries certainly support this view.
Another attempt to solve the Pelasgian problem is that of E.
Meyer[1098]. After enumerating the various areas said to have been
occupied by the Pelasgians "_ein grosses Urvolk_" who ranged from Asia
Minor to Italy, he pricks the bubble by saying that in reality there
were no Pelasgians save in Thessaly, in the fruitful plain of Peneus,
hence called "Pelasgic Argos[1099]," and later Pelasgiotis. They, like
the Dorians, invaded Crete from Thessaly and at the beginning of the
first millennium were defeated and enslaved by the incoming Thessalians.
These are the only true Pelasgians. The other so-called Pelasgians are
the descendants of an eponymous Pelasgos who in genealogical poetry
becomes the ancestor of mankind. Since the Arcadians were regarded as
the earliest of the indigenous peoples, Pelasgos was made the ancestor
of the Arcadians. The name "Pelasgic Argos" was transferred from
Thessaly to the Peloponnesian city. Attic Pelasgians were derived from a
mistake of Hecataeus[1100]. So the legend grew. The only real Pelasgian
problem, concludes Meyer, is whether the Thessalian Pelasgians were a
Greek or pre-Greek people, and he is inclined to favour the latter view.
The identity of "the most mysterious people of antiquity" is further
obscured by philology, for, as P. Giles points out, their name appears
merely to mean "the people of the sea," so that "they do not seem to be
in all cases the same stock[1101]."
Whether we call them Pelasgians or no, there would seem to be little
doubt that the splendours of Aegean civilisation which have been and
still are being gradually revealed by the researches of British,
Italian, American and German archaeologists are to be attributed to an
indigenous people of Mediterranean type, occupying an area of which
Crete was the centre, from the Stone Age, right through the Bronze Age,
down to the Northern invasions of the second millennium and the
introduction of iron. In range this culture included Greece with its
islands, Cyprus, and Western Anatolia, and its influence extended
westwards to Sicily, Italy, Sardinia and Spain, and eastwards to Syria
and Egypt. Its chief characteristics are (1) an indigenous script both
pictographic and linear, with possible affinities in Hittite, Cypriote
and South-west Anatolian scripts, but hitherto indecipherable; (2) a
characteristic art attempting "to express an ideal in forms more and
more closely approaching to realities[1102]," exhibited in frescoes,
pottery, reliefs, sculptures, jewelry etc.; (3) a distinctive
architectural style, and (4) type of tomb, which have no parallels
elsewhere. Excavations at Cnossos go far towards establishing a
chronology for the Aegean area. At the base is an immensely thick
neolithic deposit, above which come pottery and other objects of Minoan
Period I. 1, which are correlated by Petrie with objects found at
Abydos, referred by him to the 1st Dynasty (4000 B.C.). Minoan Period
II. 2 corresponds with the Egyptian XII Dynasty (2500 B.C.),
characteristic Cretan pottery of this period being found in the Fayum.
Minoan Period III. 1 and 2 synchronises with Dynasty XVIII (1600 to
1400 B.C.). Iron begins to be used for weapons after Period III. 3, and
is commonly attributed to incursions from the north, the Dorian invasion
of the Greek authors, about 1000 B.C. which led to the destruction of
the palace of Cnossos and the substitution of "Geometric" for
"Mykenaean" art.
Turning to the African branch of the Mediterranean type, we find it
forming not merely the substratum, but the great bulk of the inhabitants
throughout all recorded time from the Atlantic to the Red Sea, and from
the Mediterranean to Sudan, although since Muhammadan times largely
intermingled with the kindred Semitic stock (mainly Arabs) in the north
and west, and in the east (Abyssinia) with the same stock since
prehistoric times. All are comprised by Sergi[1103] in two main
divisions:--
1. EASTERN HAMITES, answering to the _Ethiopic Branch_ of some writers,
of somewhat variable type, comprising the _Old_ and _Modern Egyptians_
now mixed with Semitic (Arab) elements; the _Nubians_, the _Bejas_, the
_Abyssinians_, collective name of all the peoples between Khor Barka and
Shoa (with, in some places, a considerable infusion of Himyaritic or
early Semitic blood from South Arabia); the _Gallas_ (Gallas proper,
Somals, and Afars or Danakils); the _Masai_ and _Ba-Hima_.
2. NORTHERN HAMITES, the _Libyan Race_ or _Berber (Western) Branch_ of
some writers, comprising the _Mediterranean Berbers_ of Algeria, Tunis,
and Tripoli; the _Atlantic Berbers_ (_Shluhs_ and others) of Morocco;
the _West Saharan Berbers_ commonly called _Tuaregs_; the _Tibus_ of the
East Sahara; the _Fulahs_, dispersed amongst the Sudanese Negroes; the
_Guanches_ of the Canary Islands.
Of the Eastern Hamites he remarks generally that they do not form a
homogeneous division, but rather a number of different peoples either
crowded together in separate areas, or dispersed in the territories of
other peoples. They agree more in their inner than in their outer
characters, without constituting a single ethnical type. The cranial
forms are variable, though converging, and evidently to be regarded as
very old varieties of an original stock. The features are also variable,
converging and characteristic, with straight or arched (aquiloid) nose
quite different from the Negro; lips rather thick, but never everted as
in the Negro; hair usually frizzled, not wavy; beard thin; skin very
variable, brown, red-brown, black-brown, ruddy black, chocolate and
coffee-brown, reddish or yellowish, these variations being due to
crossings and the outward physical conditions.
In this assumption Sergi is supported by the analogous case of the
western Berbers between the Senegal and Morocco, to whom Collignon and
Deniker[1104] restrict the term "Moor," as an ethnical name. The chief
groups, which range from the Atlantic coast east to the camping grounds
of the true Tuaregs[1105], are the Trarsas and Braknas of the Senegal
river, and farther north the Dwaish (Idoesh), Uled-Bella, Uled-Embark,
and Uled-en-Nasur. From a study of four of these Moors, who visited
Paris in 1895, it appears that they are not an Arabo-Berber cross, as
commonly supposed, but true Hamites, with a distinct Negro strain, shown
especially in their frizzly hair, bronze colour, short broad nose, and
thickish lips, their general appearance showing an astonishing likeness
to the Bejas, Afars, Somals, Abyssinians, and other Eastern Hamites.
This is not due to direct descent, and it is more reasonable to suppose
"that at the two extremities of the continent the same causes have
produced the same effects, and that from the infusion of a certain
proportion of black blood in the Egyptian [eastern] and Berber branches
of the Hamites, there have sprung closely analogous mixed groups[1106]."
From the true Negro they are also distinguished by their grave and
dignified bearing, and still more by their far greater intelligence.
Both divisions of the Hamites, continues Sergi, agree substantially in
their bony structure, and thus form a single anthropological group with
variable skull--pentagonoid, ovoid, ellipsoid, sphenoid, etc., as
expressed in his terminology--but constant, that is, each variety
recurring in all the branches; face also variable (tetragonal,
ellipsoid, etc.), but similarly identical in all the branches; profile
non-prognathous; eyes dark, straight, not prominent; nose straight or
arched; hair smooth, curly, long, black or chestnut; beard full, also
scant; lips thin or slightly tumid, never protruding; skin of various
brown shades; stature medium or tall.
Such is the great anthropological division, which was diffused
continuously over the greater part of Africa, and round the northern
shores of the Mediterranean. According to Stuhlmann[1107] it had its
origin in South Arabia, if not further east, and entered Africa in the
region of Erythrea. He regards the Red Sea as offering no obstacle to
migrations, but suggests a possible land connection between the opposite
shores.
Nothing is more astonishing than the strange persistence not merely of
the Berber type, but of the Berber temperament and nationality since the
Stone Ages, despite the successive invasions of foreign peoples during
the historic period. First came the Sidonian Phoenicians, founders of
Carthage and Utica probably about 1500 B.C. The Greek occupation of
Cyrenaica (628 B.C.) was followed by the advent of the Romans on the
ruins of the Carthaginian empire. The Romans have certainly left
distinct traces of their presence, and some of the Aures highlanders
still proudly call themselves _Rumaniya_. These _Shawias_ ("Pastors")
form a numerous group, all claiming Roman descent, and even still
keeping certain Roman and Christian feasts, such as _Bu Ini_, _i.e._
Christmas; _Innar_ or _January_ (New Year's Day); Spring (Easter), etc.
A few Latin words also survive such as _urtho_ = hortus; _kerrush_ =
quercus (evergreen oak); _milli_ = milliarium (milestone).
After the temporary Vandal occupation came the great Arab invasions of
the seventh and later centuries, and even these had been preceded by the
kindred _Ruadites_, who had in pre-Moslem times already reached
Mauretania from Arabia. With the Jews, some of whom had also reached
Tripolitana before the New Era, a steady infiltration of Negroes from
Sudan, and the recent French, Spanish, Italian, and Maltese settlers, we
have all the elements that go to make up the cosmopolitan population of
Mauretania.
But amid them all the Berbers and the Arabs stand out as the immensely
predominant factors, still distinct despite a probably common origin in
the far distant past and later interminglings. The Arab remains above
all a nomad herdsman, dwelling in tents, without house or hamlet, a good
stock-breeder, but a bad husbandman, and that only on compulsion. "The
ploughshare and shame enter hand in hand into the family," says the
national proverb. To find space for his flocks and herds he continues
the destructive work of Carthaginian and Roman, who ages ago cleared
vast wooded tracts for their fleets and commercial navies, and thus
rendered large areas barren and desolate.
The Berber on the contrary loves the sheltering woodlands; he is
essentially a highlander who carefully tills the forest glades, settles
in permanent homes, and often develops flourishing industries. Arab
society is feudal and theocratic, ruled by a despotic Sheikh, while the
Berber with his _Jemaa_, or "Witenagemot," and his _Kanun_ or unwritten
code, feels himself a freeman; and it may well have been this democratic
spirit, inherited by his European descendants, that enabled the western
nations to take the lead in the onward movement of humanity. The Arab
again is a fanatic, ever to be feared, because he blindly obeys the will
of Allah proclaimed by his prophets, marabouts, and mahdis[1108]. But
the Berber, a born sceptic, looks askance at theological dogmas; an
unconscious philosopher, he is far less of a fatalist than his Semitic
neighbour, who associates with Allah countless demons and jins in the
government of the world.
In their physical characters the two races also present some striking
contrasts, the Arab having the regular oval brain-cap and face of the
true Semite, whereas the Berber head is more angular, less finely
moulded, with more prominent cheekbones, shorter and less aquiline nose,
which combined with a slight degree of sub-nasal prognathism, imparts
to the features coarser and less harmonious outlines. He is at the same
time distinctly taller and more muscular, with less uniformity in the
colour of the eye and the hair, as might be expected from the numerous
elements entering into the constitution of present Berber populations.
In the social conflict between the Arab and Berber races, the curious
spectacle is presented of two nearly equal elements (same origin, same
religion, same government, same or analogous tribal groupings, at about
the same cultural development) refusing to amalgamate to any great
extent, although living in the closest proximity for over a thousand
years. In this struggle the Arab seems so far to have had the advantage.
Instances of Berberised Arabs occur, but are extremely rare, whereas the
Berbers have not only everywhere accepted the Koran, but whole tribes
have become assimilated in speech, costume, and usages to the Semitic
intruders. It might therefore seem as if the Arab must ultimately
prevail. But we are assured by the French observers that in Algeria and
Tunisia appearances are fallacious, however the case may stand in
Morocco and the Sahara. "The Arab," writes Malbot, to whom I am indebted
for some of these details, "an alien in Mauretania, transported to a
soil which does not always suit him, so far from thriving tends to
disappear, whereas the Berber, especially under the shield of France,
becomes more and more aggressive, and yearly increases in numbers. At
present he forms at least three-fifths of the population in Algeria, and
in Morocco the proportion is greater. He is the race of the future as of
the past[1109]."
This however would seem to apply only to the races, not to their
languages, for we are elsewhere told that Arabic is encroaching steadily
on the somewhat ruder Berber dialects[1110]. Considering the enormous
space over which they are diffused, and the thousands of years that some
of the groups have ceased to be in contact, these dialects show
remarkably slight divergence from the long extinct speech from which all
have sprung. Whatever it be called--Kabyle, Zenatia, Shawia, Tamashek,
Shluh--the Berber language is still essentially one, and the likeness
between the forms current in Morocco, Algeria, the Sahara, and the
remote Siwah Oasis on the confines of Egypt, is much closer, for
instance, than between Norse and English in the sub-Aryan Teutonic
group[1111].
But when we cross the conventional frontier between the contiguous
Tuareg and Tibu domains in the central Sahara the divergence is so great
that philologists are still doubtful whether the two languages are even
remotely or are at all connected. Ever since the abandonment of the
generalisation of Lepsius that Hamitic and Negro were the sole stock
languages, the complexity of African linguistic problems has been
growing more and more apparent, and Tibu is only one among many puzzles,
concerning which there is great discordance of opinion even among the
most recent and competent authorities[1112].
The Tibu themselves, apparently direct descendants of the ancient
Garamantes, have their primeval home in the Tibesti range, _i.e._ the
"Rocky Mountains," whence they take their name[1113]. There are two
distinct sections, the Northern _Tedas_, a name recalling the
_Tedamansii_, a branch of the Garamantes located by Ptolemy somewhere
between Tripolitana and Phazania (Fezzan), and the Southern _Dazas_,
through whom the Tibu merge gradually in the negroid populations of
central Sudan. This intermingling with the blacks dates from remote
times, whence Ptolemy's remark that the Garamantes seemed rather more
"Ethiopians" than Libyans[1114]. But there can be no doubt that the
full-blood Tibu, as represented by the northern section, are mainly
Mediterranean, and although the type of the men is somewhat coarser than
that of their Tuareg neighbours, that of the women is almost the finest
in Africa. "Their women are charming while still in the bloom of youth,
unrivalled amongst their sisters of North Africa for their physical
beauty; pliant and graceful figures[1115]."
It is interesting to notice amongst these somewhat secluded Saharan
nomads the slow growth of culture, and the curious survival of usages
which have their explanation in primitive social conditions. "The Tibu
is always distrustful; hence, meeting a fellow-countryman in the desert
he is careful not to draw near without due precaution. At sight of each
other both generally stop suddenly; then crouching and throwing the
litham over the lower part of the face in Tuareg fashion, they grasp the
inseparable spear in their right and the shanger-mangor, or bill-hook,
in their left. After these preliminaries they begin to interchange
compliments, inquiring after each other's health and family connections,
receiving every answer with expressions of thanksgiving to Allah. These
formalities usually last some minutes[1116]." Obviously all this means
nothing more than a doffing of the hat or a shake-hands amongst more
advanced peoples; but it points to times when every stranger was a
_hostis_, who later became the _hospes_ (host, guest).
It will be noticed that the Tibu domain, with the now absolutely
impassable Libyan desert[1117], almost completely separates the
Mediterranean branch from the Hamites proper. Continuity, however, is
accorded, both on the north along the shores of the Mediterranean to the
Nile Delta (Lower Egypt), and on the south through Darfur and Kordofan
to the White Nile, and thence down the main stream to Upper Egypt, and
through Abyssinia, Galla and Somali lands to the Indian Ocean. Between
the Nile and the east coast the domain of the Hamites stretches from the
equator northwards to Egypt and the Mediterranean.
It appears therefore that Egypt, occupied for many thousands of years by
an admittedly Hamitic people, might have been reached either from the
west by the Mediterranean route, or down the Nile, or, lastly, it maybe
suggested that the Hamites were specialised in the Nile valley itself.
The point is not easy to decide, because, when appeal is made to the
evidence of the Stone Ages, we find nothing to choose between such
widely separated regions as Somaliland, Upper Egypt, and Mauretania, all
of which have yielded superabundant proofs of the presence of man for
incalculable ages, estimated by some palethnologists at several hundred
thousand years. In Egypt the palaeoliths indicate not only extreme
antiquity, but also that the course of civilisation was uninterrupted by
any such crises as have afforded means of chronological classification
in Western Europe. The differences in technique are local and
geographical, not historic. The Neolithic period tells the same tale,
and the use of copper at the beginning of the historic period only
slowly replaced the flint industry, which continued during the earlier
dynasties down to the period of the Middle Empire and attained a degree
of perfection nowhere surpassed. Prehistoric pottery strengthens the
evidence of a slow, gradual development, the newer forms nowhere
jostling out the old, but co-existing side by side[1118].
It might seem therefore that the question of Egyptian origins was
settled by the mere statement of the case, and that there could be no
hesitation in saying that the Egyptian Hamites were evolved on Egyptian
soil, consequently are the true autochthones in the Nile valley. Yet
there is no ethnological question more hotly discussed than this of
Egyptian origins and culture, for the two seem inseparable. There are
broadly speaking two schools: the African, whose fundamental views are
thus briefly set forth, and the Asiatic, which brings the Egyptians with
all their works from the neighbouring continent. But, seeing that the
Egyptians are now admitted to be Hamites, that there are no Hamites to
speak of (let it be frankly said, none at all) in Asia, and that they
have for untold ages occupied large tracts of Africa, there are several
members of the Asiatic school who allow that, not the people themselves,
but their culture only came from western Asia (Mesopotamia). If so, this
culture would presumably have its roots in the delta, which is first
reached by the Isthmus of Suez from Asia, and spread thence, say, from
Memphis up the Nile to Thebes and Upper Egypt, and here arises a
difficulty. For at that time there was no delta[1119], or at least it
was only in process of formation, a kind of debatable region between
land and water, inhabitable mainly by crocodiles, and utterly unsuited
to become the seat of a culture whose characteristic features are huge
stone monuments, amongst the largest ever erected by man, and
consequently needing solid foundations on _terra firma_. It further
appears that although Memphis is very old, Thebes is much older, in
other words, that Egyptian culture began in Upper Egypt, and spread not
up but down the Nile. On the other hand the Egyptians themselves looked
upon the delta as the cradle of their civilisation, although no traces
of material culture have survived, or could be expected to survive, in
such a soil[1120]. Moreover it is not necessary to introduce Asiatic
invaders by way of Lower Egypt. F. Stuhlmann postulates a land
connection between Africa and Arabia, but even without this assumption
he regards the Red Sea as affording no hindrance to early
infiltrations[1121]. Flinders Petrie, while rejecting any considerable
water transport for the uncultured prehistoric Egyptians (whom he
derives from Libya), detects a succession of subsequent invasions from
Asia, the dynastic race crossing the Red Sea to the neighbourhood of
Koptos, and Syrian invasions leading to the civilisation of the Twelfth
Dynasty, besides the later Hyksos invasions of Semito-Babylonian
stock[1122].
The theory of Asiatic origins is clearly summed up by H. H.
Johnston[1123]. He regards the earliest inhabitants of Egypt as a
dwarfish Negro-like race, not unlike the Congo Pygmies of to-day (p.
375), with possibly some trace of Bushman (p. 378), but this population
was displaced more than 15,000 years ago by Mediterranean man, who may
have penetrated as far as Abyssinia, and may have been linguistically
parent of the Fulah[1124]. The Fulah type was displaced by the invasions
of the Hamites and the Libyans or Berbers. "The Hamites were no doubt
of common origin, linguistically and racially, with the Semites, and
perhaps originated in that great breeding ground of conquering peoples,
South-west Asia. They preceded the Semites, and (we may suppose) after a
long stay and concentration in Mesopotamia invaded and colonised Arabia,
Southern Palestine, Egypt, Abyssinia, Somaliland and North Africa to its
Atlantic shores. The Dynastic Egyptians were also Hamites in a sense,
both linguistically and physically; but they seem to have attained to a
high civilisation in Western Arabia, to have crossed the Red Sea in
vessels, and to have made their first base on the Egyptian coast near
Berenice in the natural harbour formed by Ras Benas. From here a long,
broad wadi or valley--then no doubt fertile--led them to the Nile in the
Thebaid, the first seat of their kingly power[1125]. The ancestors of
the Dynastic Egyptians may have originated the great dams and irrigation
works in Western Arabia; and such long struggles with increasing drought
may have first broken them in to the arts of quarrying stone blocks and
building with stone. Over population and increasing drought may have
caused them to migrate across the Red Sea in search of another home; or
their migration may have been partly impelled by the Semitic hordes from
the north, whom we can imagine at this period--some 9000 to 10,000 years
ago--pressing southwards into Arabia and conquering or fusing with the
preceding Hamites; just as these latter, no doubt, at an earlier day,
had wrested Arabia from the domain of the Negroid and Dravidian" (p.
382).
That the founding of the First Dynasty was coincident with a physical
change in the population, is proved by the thousands of skeletons and
mummies examined by Elliot Smith[1126], who regards the Pre-dynastic
Egyptians as "probably the nearest approximation to that anthropological
abstraction, a pure race, that we know of (p. 83)." He describes the
type as follows (Chap. IV.).
The Proto-Egyptian (_i.e._ Pre-dynastic) was a man of small stature, his
mean height, estimated at a little under 5 ft. 5 in., in the flesh for
men, and almost 5 ft. in the case of women, being just about the
average for mankind in general, whereas the modern Egyptian _fellah_
averages about 5 ft. 6 in. He was of very slender build with indications
of poor muscular development. In fact there is a suggestion of
effeminate grace and frailty about his bones, which is lacking in the
more rugged outlines of the skeletons of his more virile successors. The
hair of the Proto-Egyptian was precisely similar to that of the brunet
South European or Iberian people of the present day. It was a very dark
brown or black colour, wavy or almost straight and sometimes curly,
never "woolly." There can be no doubt whatever that this dark hair was
associated with dark eyes and a bronzed complexion. Elliot Smith
emphatically endorses Sergi's identification of the ancient Egyptian as
belonging to his Mediterranean Race. "So striking is the family likeness
between the Early Neolithic peoples of the British Isles and the
Mediterranean and the bulk of the population, both ancient and modern,
of Egypt and East Africa, that a description of the bones of an early
Briton might apply in all essential details to an inhabitant of
Somaliland." But he points out also that there is an equally close
relationship linking the Proto-Egyptians with the populations to the
east, from the Red Sea as far as India, including Semites as well as
Hamites. Rejecting the terms "Mediterranean" or "Hamite" as inadequate
he would classify his Mediterranean-Hamite-Semite group as the "Brown
Race[1127]."
A most fortunate combination of circumstances afforded Elliot Smith an
opportunity for determining the ethnic affinities of the Egyptian
people.
The Hearst Expedition of the University of California, under the
direction of G. A. Reisner, was occupied from 1901 onwards with
excavations at Naga-ed-Der in the Thebaid, where a cemetery, excavated
by A. M. Lythgoe, contained well-preserved bodies and skeletons of the
earliest known Pre-dynastic period. Close by was a series of graves of
the First and Second Dynasties; a few hundred yards away tombs of the
Second to the Fifth Dynasties (examined by A. C. Mace), with a large
number of tombs ranging from the time of the Sixth Dynasty to the
Twelfth. "Thus there was provided a chronologically unbroken series of
human remains representing every epoch in the history of Upper Egypt
from prehistoric times, roughly estimated at 4000 B.C., up till the
close of the Middle Empire, more than two thousand years later." To
complete the story Coptic (Christian Egyptian) graves of the fifth and
sixth centuries were discovered on the same site.
"The study of this extraordinarily complete series of human remains,
providing in a manner such as no other site has ever done the materials
for the reconstruction of the racial history of one spot during more
than forty-five centuries, made it abundantly clear that the people
whose remains were buried just before the introduction of Islam into
Egypt were of the same flesh and blood as their forerunners in the same
locality before the dawn of history. And nine years' experience in the
Anatomical Department of the School of Medicine in Cairo," continues
Elliot Smith, "has left me in no doubt that the bulk of the present
population in Egypt conforms to precisely the same racial type, which
has thus been dominant in the northern portion of the Valley of the Nile
for sixty centuries[1128]."
As early as the Second Dynasty certain alien traits began to appear,
which became comparatively common in the Sixth to Twelfth series. The
non-Egyptian characters are observable in remains from numerous sites
excavated by Flinders Petrie in Lower and Middle Egypt, and are
particularly marked in the cemetery round the Giza Pyramids (excavated
by the Hearst Expedition, 1903), containing remains of more than five
hundred individuals, who had lived at the time of the Pyramid-builders;
they are therefore referred to by Elliot Smith as "Giza traits," and
attributed to Armenoid influence. Soon after the amalgamation of the
Egyptian kingdoms of Upper and Lower Egypt by Menes (Mena), consequent
perhaps upon the discovery of copper and the invention of metal
implements[1129], expeditions were sent beyond the frontiers of the
United Kingdom to obtain copper ore, wood and other objects. Even in the
times of the First Dynasty the Egyptians began the exploitation of the
mines in the Sinai Peninsula for copper ore. It is claimed by
Meyer[1130] that Palestine and the Phoenician coast were Egyptian
dependencies, and there is ample evidence that there was intimate
intercourse between Egypt and Palestine as far north as the Lebanons
before the end of the Third Dynasty. From this time forward the
physical characters of the people of Lower Egypt show the results of
foreign admixture, and present marked features of contrast to the pure
type of Upper Egypt. The curious blending of characters suggests that
the process of racial admixture took place in Syria rather than in Egypt
itself[1131]. The alien type is best shown in the Giza necropolis, and
its representatives may be regarded as the builders and guardians of the
Pyramids. The stature is about the same as that of the Proto-Egyptians,
possibly rather lower, but they were built on far sturdier lines, their
bones being more massive, with well-developed muscular ridges and
impressions, and none of the effeminacy or infantilism of the
prehistoric skeletons. The brain-case has greater capacity with no trace
of the meagre ill-filled character exhibited by the latter.
Characteristic peculiarities were the "Grecian profile" and a jaw
closely resembling those of the round-headed Alpine races.
These "Giza traits" were not a local development, for they have been
noted in all parts of Palestine and Asia Minor, and abundantly in Persia
and Afghanistan. They occur in the Punjab but are absent from India,
having an area of greatest concentration in the neighbourhood of the
Pamirs; while in a westerly direction, besides being sporadically
scattered over North Africa, they are recognised again in the extinct
Guanches of the Canary Islands. From these considerations Elliot Smith
shapes the following "working hypothesis."
"The Egyptians, Arabs and Sumerians may have been kinsmen of the Brown
Race, each diversely specialized by long residence in its own domain;
and in Pre-dynastic times, before the wider usefulness of copper as a
military instrument of tremendous power was realized, the Middle
Pre-dynastic phase of culture became diffused far and wide throughout
Arabia and Sumer. Then came the awakening to the knowledge of the
supremacy which the possession of metal weapons conferred upon those who
wielded them in combat against those not so armed. Upper Egypt
vanquished Lower Egypt in virtue of this knowledge and the possession of
such weapons. The United Kingdom pushed its way into Syria to obtain
wood and ore, and incidentally taught the Arabs the value of metal
weapons. The Arabs thereby obtained the supremacy over the Armenoids of
Northern Syria, and the hybrid race of Semites formed from this blend
were able to descend the Euphrates and vanquish the more cultured
Sumerians, because the latter were without metal implements of war. The
non-Semitic Armenoids of Asia Minor carried the new knowledge into
Europe[1132]."
This hypothesis might explain some of the difficult problems connecting
Egypt and Babylonia[1133]. The non-Asiatic origin of the Egyptian people
appears to be indicated by recent excavations, but, as mentioned above,
there are still many who hold that Egyptian culture and civilisation
were derived mainly, if not wholly, from Asiatic (probably Sumerian)
sources. The Semitic elements existing in the ancient Egyptian language,
certain resemblances between names of Sumerian and Egyptian gods, and
the similarity of hieroglyphic characters to the Sumerian system of
writing have been cited as proofs of the dependence of the one culture
upon the other; while the introduction of the knowledge of metals,
metal-working and the crafts of brick-making and tomb construction have,
together with the bulbous mace-head, cylinder-seal and domesticated
animals and plants[1134], been traced to Babylonia.
But the excavations of Reisner at Naga-ed-Der and those of Naville at
Abydos (1909-10) appear to place the indigenous development of Egyptian
culture beyond question. Reisner's conclusions[1135] are that there was
no sudden break of continuity between the neolithic and early dynastic
cultures of Egypt. No essential change took place in the Egyptian
conception of life after death, or in the rites and practices
accompanying interment. The most noticeable changes, in the character of
the pottery and household vessels, in the materials for tools and
weapons and the introduction of writing, were all gradually introduced,
and one period fades into another without any strongly marked line of
division between them. Egypt no doubt had trading relations with
surrounding countries. Egyptians and Babylonians must have met in the
markets of Syria, and in the tents of Bedouin chiefs. Still, as Meyer
points out, far from Egypt taking over a ready-made civilisation from
Babylonia, Egypt, as regards cultural influence, was the giver not the
receiver[1136].
One more alien element in Egypt remains to be discussed. Most writers on
Egyptian ethnology detect a Negro or at least Negroid element in the
Caucasoid population, and although usually assigning priority to the
Negro, assume the co-existence of the two races from time immemorial to
the present day. Measurements on more than 1000 individuals were made by
C. S. Myers, and these are his conclusions. "There is no anthropometric
(despite the historic) evidence that the population of Egypt, past or
present, is composed of several different races. Our new anthropometric
data favour the view which regards the Egyptians always as a homogeneous
people, who have varied now towards Caucasian, now towards negroid
characters (according to environment), showing such close anthropometric
affinity to Libyan, Arabian and like neighbouring peoples, showing such
variability and possibly such power of absorption, that from the
anthropometric standpoint no evidence is obtainable that the modern
Egyptians have been appreciably affected by other than sporadic Sudanese
admixture[1137]."
It was seen above (Chap. III.) that non-Negro elements are found
throughout the Sudan from Senegal nearly to Darfur, nowhere forming the
whole of the population, but nearly always the dominant native race.
These are the Fulah (Fula, Fulbe or Fulani), whose ethnic affinities
have given rise to an enormous amount of speculation. Their linguistic
peculiarity had led many ethnologists to regard them as the descendants
of the first white colonists of North Africa, "Caucasoid invaders,"
15,000 years ago, prior to Hamitic intrusions from the east[1138]. Thus
would be explained the fact that their language betrays absolutely no
structural affinity with Semitic or Libyo-Hamitic groups, or with any
other speech families outside Africa, though offering faint
resemblances in structure with the Lesghian[1139] speech of the Caucasus
and the Dravidian tongues of Baluchistan and India. Physically there
seems to be nothing to differentiate them from other blends[1140] of
Hamite-Negro. The physical type of the pure-bred Fulah H. H. Johnston
describes as follows: "Tall of stature (but not gigantic, like the
Nilote and South-east Sudanese), olive-skinned or even a pale yellow;
well-proportioned, with delicate hands and feet, without steatopygy,
with long, oval face, big nose (in men), straight nose in women (nose
finely cut, like that of the Caucasian), eyes large and "melting," with
an Egyptian look about them, head-hair long, black, kinky or ringlety,
never quite straight[1141]." They were at first a quiet people, herdsmen
and shepherds with a high and intricate type of pagan religion which
still survives in parts of Nigeria. But large numbers of them became
converted to Islam from the twelfth century onwards and gained some
knowledge of the world outside Africa by their pilgrimages to Mecca. At
the end of the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth centuries
an uprise of Muhammadan fanaticism and a proud consciousness of their
racial superiority to the mere Negro armed them as an aristocracy to
wrest political control of all Nigeria from the hands of Negro rulers or
the decaying power of Tuareg and Songhai. This race was all
unconsciously carrying on the Caucasian invasion and penetration of
Africa.
A less controversial problem is presented by the Eastern Hamites, who
form a continuous chain of dark Caucasic peoples from the Mediterranean
to the equator, and whose ethnical unity is now established by Sergi on
anatomical grounds[1142]. Bordering on Upper Egypt, and extending thence
to the foot of the Abyssinian plateau, is the Beja section, whose chief
divisions--Ababdeh, Hadendoa, Bisharin, Beni Amer--have from the
earliest times occupied the whole region between the Nile and the Red
Sea.
C. G. Seligman has analysed the physical and cultural characters of the
Beja tribes (_Bisharin_, _Hadendoa_ and _Beni Amer_), the _Barabra_,
nomad Arabs (such as the _Kababish_ and _Kawahla_), Nilotes (_Shilluk,
Dinka, Nuer_) and half-Hamites (_Ba-Hima, Masai_), in an attempt by
eliminating the Negro and Semitic elements to deduce the main features
which may be held to indicate Hamitic influence. He regards the _Beni
Amer_ as approximating most closely to the original _Beja_ type which he
thus describes. "Summarizing their physical characteristics it may be
said that they are moderately short, slightly built men, with
reddish-brown or brown skins in which a greater or less tinge of black
is present, while in some cases the skin is definitely darker and
presents some shade of brown-black. The hair is usually curly, in some
instances it certainly might be described as wavy, but the method of
hair dressing adopted tends to make difficult an exact description of
its condition. Often, as is everywhere common amongst wearers of
turbans, the head is shaved.... The face is usually long and oval, or
approaching the oval in shape, the jaw is often lightly built, which
with the presence of a rather pointed chin may tend to make the upper
part of the face appear disproportionately broad. The nose is well
shaped and thoroughly Caucasian in type and form[1143]." Among the
Hadendoa the "Armenoid" or so-called "Jewish" nose is not uncommon.
Seligman draws attention to the close resemblance between the _Beja_
type and that of the ancient Egyptians.
Through the Afars (Danakil) of the arid coastlands between Abyssinia and
the sea, the Bejas are connected with the numerous Hamitic populations
of the Somali and Galla lands. For the term "Somal," which is quite
recent and of course unknown to the natives, H. M. Abud[1144] suggests
an interesting and plausible explanation. Being a hospitable people, and
milk their staple food, "the first word a stranger would hear on
visiting their kraals would be 'So mal,' _i.e._ 'Go and bring milk.'"
Strangers may have named them from this circumstance, and other tribal
names may certainly be traced to more improbable sources.
The natives hold that two races inhabit the land: (1) ASHA, true Somals,
of whom there are two great divisions, _Darod_ and _Ishak_, both
claiming descent from certain noble Arab families, though no longer of
Arab speech; (2) HAWIYA, who are not counted by the others as true
Somals, but only "pagans," and also comprise two main branches, _Aysa_
and _Gadabursi_. In the national genealogies collected by Abud and Cox,
many of the mythical heroes are buried at or near Meit, which may thus
be termed the cradle of the Somal race. From this point they spread in
all directions, the Darods pushing south and driving the Galla beyond
the Webbe Shebel, and till lately raiding them as far as the Tana river.
It should be noticed that these genealogical tables are far from
complete, for they exclude most of the southern sections, notably the
_Rahanwin_ who have a very wide range on both sides of the Jub.
In the statements made by the natives about true Somals and "pagans,"
race and religion are confused, and the distinction between Asha and
Hawiya is merely one between Moslem and infidel. The latter are probably
of much purer stock than the former, whose very genealogies testify to
interminglings of the Moslem Arab intruders with the heathen aborigines.
Despite their dark colour C. Keller[1145] has no difficulty in regarding
the Somali as members of the "Caucasic Race." The Semitic type crops out
decidedly in several groups, and they are generally speaking of fine
physique, well grown, with proud bearing and often with classic profile,
though the type is very variable owing to Arab and Negro grafts on the
Hamitic stock. The hair is never woolly, but, like that of the Beja,
ringlety and less thick than the Abyssinian and Galla, sometimes even
quite straight. The forehead is finely rounded and prominent, eye
moderately large and rather deep-set, nose straight, but also snub and
aquiline, mouth regular, lips not too thick, head sub-dolichocephalic.
Great attention has been paid to all these Eastern Hamitic peoples by
Ph. Paulitschke[1146], who regards the Galla as both intellectually and
morally superior to the Somals and Afars, the chief reason being that
the baneful influences exercised by the Arabs and Abyssinians affect to
a far greater extent the two latter than the former group.
The Galla appear to have reached the African coast before the Danakil
and Somali, but were driven south-east by pressure from the latter,
leaving Galla remnants as serfs among the southern Somali, while the
presence of servile negroid tribes among the Galla gives proof of an
earlier population which they partially displaced. Subsequent pressure
from the Masai on the south forced the Galla into contact with the
Danakil, and a branch penetrating inland established themselves on the
north and east of Victoria Nyanza, where they are known to-day as the
Ba-Hima, Wa-Tusi, Wa-Ruanda and kindred tribes, which have been
described on p. 91.
The Masai, the terror of their neighbours, are a mixture of Galla and
Nilotic Negro, producing what has been described as the finest type in
Africa. The build is slender and the height often over six feet, the
face is well formed, with straight nose and finely cut nostrils, the
hair is usually frizzly, and the skin dark or reddish brown. They are
purely pastoral, possessing enormous herds of cattle in which they take
great pride, but they are chiefly remarkable for their military
organisation which was hardly surpassed by that of the Zulu. They have
everywhere found in the agricultural peoples an easy prey, and until the
reduction of their wealth by rinderpest (since 1891) and the restraining
influence of the white man, the Masai were regarded as an ever-dreaded
scourge by all the less warlike inhabitants of Eastern Africa[1147].
Amongst the Abyssinian Hamites we find the strangest interminglings of
primitive and more advanced religious ideas. On a seething mass of
African heathendom, already in pre-historic times affected by early
Semitic ideas introduced by the Himyarites from South Arabia, was
somewhat suddenly imposed an undeveloped form of Christianity by the
preaching of Frumentius in the fourth century, with results that cannot
be called satisfactory. While the heterogeneous ethnical elements have
been merged in a composite Abyssinian nationality, the discordant
religious ideas have never yet been fused in a consistent uniform
system. Hence "Abyssinian Christianity" is a sort of by-word even
amongst the Eastern Churches, while the social institutions are marked
by elementary notions of justice and paradoxical "shamanistic"
practices, interspersed with a few sublime moral precepts. Many things
came as a surprise to the members of the Rennell Rodd Mission[1148], who
could not understand such a strange mixture of savagery and lofty
notions in a Christian community which, for instance, accounted
accidental death as wilful murder. The case is mentioned of a man
falling from a tree on a friend below and killing him. "He was adjudged
to perish at the hands of the bereaved family, in the same manner as the
corpse. But the family refused to sacrifice a second member, so the
culprit escaped." Dreams also are resorted to, as in the days of the
Pharaohs, for detecting crime. A priest is sent for, and if his prayers
and curses fail, a small boy is drugged and told to dream. "Whatever
person he dreams of is fixed on as the criminal; no further proof is
needed.... If the boy does not dream of the person whom the priest has
determined on as the criminal, he is kept under drugs until he does what
is required of him."
To outsiders society seems to be a strange jumble of an iron despotism,
which forbids the selling of a horse for over L10 under severe
penalties, and a personal freedom or licence, which allows the labourer
to claim his wages after a week's work and forthwith decamp to spend
them, returning next day or next month as the humour takes him. Yet
somehow things hold together, and a few Semitic immigrants from South
Arabia have for over 2000 years contrived to maintain some kind of
control over the Hamitic aborigines who have always formed the bulk of
the population in Abyssinia[1149].
FOOTNOTES:
[1000] _The Races of Europe: A Sociological Study_, W. Z. Ripley, 1900,
p. 437.
[1001] "Diese Namen sind natuerlich rein conventionell. Sie sind
historisch berechtigt ... und moegen Geltung behalten, so lange wir keine
zutrefferenden an ihre Stelle setzen koennen" (_Anthropologische
Studien_, etc., p. 15).
[1002] E. Meyer, _Geschichte des Altertums_, 1909, l. 2, discussing the
original home of the Indo-Europeans (Sec. 561, _Das Problem der Heimat und
Ausbreitung der Indogermanen_) remarks (p. 800) that the discovery of
Tocharish (Sieg und Siegling, "Tocharish, die Sprache der Indo-skythen,"
_Sitz. d. Berl. Ak._ 1908, p. 915 ff.), a language belonging apparently
to the _centum_ (Western and European) group, overthrows all earlier
conceptions as to the distribution of the Indogermans and gives weight
to the hypothesis of their Asiatic origin.
[1003] "Io non dubito di denominare _aria_ questa stirpe etc." (_Umbri_,
_Italici_, _Arii_, Bologna, 1897, p. 14, and elsewhere).
[1004] _Anthrop. Studien_, p. 15, "Diese Gemeinsamkeit der Charakteren
beweist uns die Blutverwandtschaft" (_ib._).
[1005] Sir W. Crooke's anticipation of a possible future failure of the
wheat supply as affecting the destinies of the Caucasic peoples
(_Presidential Address at Meeting Br. Assoc._ Bristol, 1898) is an
economic question which cannot here be discussed.
[1006] Ph. Lake, "The Geology of the Sahara," in _Science Progress_,
July, 1895.
[1007] This name, meaning in Berber "running water," has been handed
down from a time when the Igharghar was still a mighty stream with a
northerly course of some 800 miles, draining an area of many thousand
square miles, in which there is not at present a single perennial
brooklet. It would appear that even crocodiles still survive from those
remote times in the so-called Lake Miharo of the Tassili district, where
von Bary detected very distinct traces of their presence in 1876. A. E.
Pease also refers to a Frenchman "who had satisfied himself of the
existence of crocodiles cut off in ages long ago from watercourses that
have disappeared" (_Contemp. Review_, July, 1896).
[1008] _Recherches sur les Origines de l'Egypte: L'Age de la Pierre et
des Metaux_, 1897.
[1009] _Bul. Soc. d'Anthrop._ 1896, p. 394. This indefatigable explorer
remarks, in reference to the continuity of human culture in Tunisia
throughout the Old and New Stone Ages, that "ces populations fortement
melangees d'elements neanderthaloides de la Kromirie fabriquent encore
des vases de tous points analogues a la poterie neolithique" (_ib._).
[1010] _The Antiquity of Man_, 1915, p. 255.
[1011] _Africa, Antropologia della Stirpe Camitica_, Turin, 1897, p. 404
sq.
[1012] "Le nord de l'Afrique entiere, y compris le Sahara naguere encore
fort peuple," _i.e._ of course relatively speaking, "Du Dniester a la
Caspienne," in _Bul. Soc. d'Anthrop._ 1896, p. 81 sq.
[1013] _Ibid._ p. 654 sq.
[1014] _Resume de l'Anthropologie de la Tunisie_, 1896, p. 4 sq.
[1015] This identity is confirmed by the characters of three skulls from
the dolmens of Madracen near Batna, Algeria, now in the Constantine
Museum, found by Letourneau and Papillaut to present striking affinities
with the long-headed Cro-Magnon race (Ceph. Index 70, 74, 78);
leptoprosope with prominent glabella, notable alveolar prognathism, and
sub-occipital bone projecting chignon-fashion at the back (_Bul. Soc.
d'Anthrop._ 1896, p. 347).
[1016] He shows ("Exploration Anthropologique de l'Ile de Gerba," in
_L'Anthropologie_, 1897, p. 424 sq.) that the North African brown
brachycephalics, forming the substratum in Mauretania, and very pure in
Gerba, resemble the European populations the more they have avoided
contact with foreign races. He quotes H. Martin: "Le type brun qui
domine dans la Grande Kabylie du Jurjura ressemble singulierement en
majorite au type francais brun. Si l'on habillait ces hommes de
vetements europeens, vous ne les distingueriez pas de paysans ou de
soldats francais." He compares them especially to the Bretons, and
agrees with Martin that "il y a parmi les Berberes bruns des
brachycephales; je croirais volontiers que les brachycephales bruns sont
des Ligures. Libyens et Ligures paraissent avoir ete originairement de
la meme race." He thinks the very names are the same: "[Greek: Libyes]
est exactement le meme mot que [Greek: Ligyes]; rien n'etait plus
frequent dans les dialectes primitifs que la mutation du _b_ en _g_."
[1017] _The Races of Europe_, 1900, _passim._
[1018] "Les Chaouias," etc., in _L'Anthropologie_, 1897, p. 1 sq.
[1019] _Ueber eine Schaedelsammlung von den Kanarischen Inseln_, with F.
von Luschan's appendix; also "Ueber die Urbewohner der Kanarischen
Inseln," in _Bastian-Festschrift_, 1896, p. 63. The inferences here
drawn are in substantial agreement with those of Henry Wallack, in his
paper on "The Guanches," in _Journ. Anthr. Inst._ June, 1887, p. 158
sq.; and also with J. C. Shrubsall, who, however, distinguishes four
pre-Spanish types from a study of numerous skulls and other remains from
Tenerife in _Proc. Cambridge Phil. Soc._ IX. 154-78. The 152 cave skulls
measured by Von Detloff von Behr, _Metrische Studien an 152
Guanchenschaedeln_, 1908, agree in the main with earlier results.
[1020] For an interpretation of the significance of Armenoid skulls in
the Canary Is. see G. Elliot Smith, _The Ancient Egyptians_, 1911, pp.
156-7.
[1021] "Denombrement et Types des Cranes Neolithiques de la Gaule," in
_Rev. Mens. de l'Ecole d'Anthrop._ 1896.
[1022] T. Rice Holmes, _Ancient Britain_, 1907, p. 424.
[1023] "Infiltrazioni pacifiche." (_Arii e Italici_, p. 124.)
[1024] _L'Anthr._ XII. 1901, pp. 547-8.
[1025] Cf. G. Elliot Smith, _The Ancient Egyptians_, 1911, p. 58 ff.
[1026] T. Rice Holmes, _Caesar's Conquest of Gaul_, 1911, p. 266, with
list of authorities. See also Sigmund Feist, _Kultur_, _Ausbreitung und
Herkunft der Indogermanen_, 1913, p. 364, and H. H. Johnston, "A Survey
of the Ethnography of Africa," _Journ. Roy. Anthr. Inst._ XLIII. 1913,
pp. 386 and 387.
[1027] T. Rice Holmes, _loc. cit._ p. 272.
[1028] W. Wright, _Middlesex Hospital Journal_, XII. 1908, p. 44.
[1029] See A. C. Haddon, _The Wanderings of Peoples_, 1911, pp. 16, 17,
55.
[1030] R. S. Conway, _The Italic Dialects_, 1897, and Art. "Etruria:
Language," _Ency. Brit._ 1911.
[1031] Cf. T. Rice Holmes, _Caesar's Conquest of Gaul_, 1911, p. 283.
"The truth is that linguistic data are insufficient."
[1032] I. 57.
[1033] See p. 465.
[1034] For Lydian see E. Littmann, _Sardis_, "Lydian Inscriptions,"
1916, briefly summarised by P. Giles, "Some Notes on the New Lydian
Inscriptions," _Camb. Univ. Rep._ 1917, p. 587.
[1035] S. Feist, _Kultur, Ausbreitung und Herkunft der Indogermanen_,
1913, p. 385.
[1036] "The attempts to connect the language with the Indo-European
family have been unsuccessful," A. H. Sayce, Art. "Lycia," _Ency. Brit._
1911. But cf. also S. Feist, _loc. cit._ pp. 385-7; and Th. Kluge, _Die
Lykier, ihre Geschichte und ihre Inschriften_, 1910.
[1037] A. J. Evans, _Scripta Minoa_, 1909.
[1038] T. Rice Holmes, _Caesar's Conquest of Gaul_, 1911, p. 289 _n._ 4.
[1039] _Die Verwandtschaft des Baskischen mit den Berbersprachen
Nord-Afrikas nachgewiesen_, 1894.
[1040] "Die Sprachen waren mit einander verwandt, das stand ausser
Zweifel." (Pref. IV.)
[1041] J. Vinson (_Rev. de linguistique_, XXXVIII. 1905, p. 111) says,
"no more absurd book on Basque has appeared of late years." See T. Rice
Holmes, _Caesar's Conquest of Gaul_, 1911, p. 299 _n._ 3.
[1042] "In the general series of organised linguistic families it
[Basque] would take an intermediate place between the American on the
one side and the Ugro-Altaic or Ugrian on the other." Wentworth Webster
and Julien Vinson, _Ency. Brit._ 1910, "Basques."
[1043] See W. Z. Ripley, _The Races of Europe_, 1900, Chap. VIII. "The
Basques," pp. 180-204.
[1044] _Rev. mensuelle de l'Ecole d'Anthr._ X. 1900, pp. 225-7.
[1045] S. Feist, _Kultur, Ausbreitung und Herkunft der Indogermanen_,
1913.
[1046] _Hist. de la Gaule_, I. 1908, p. 271.
[1047] "La Race Basque," _L'Anthrop._ 1894.
[1048] W. Z. Ripley, _loc. cit._ p. 200.
[1049] _Caesar's Conquest of Gaul_, 1911, p. 287. Cf. J. Dechelette
(_Manuel d'Archeologie prehistorique_, II. 1910, p. 27), "As a rule it
is wise to attach to this expression (Iberian) merely a geographical
value." Reviewing the problems of Iberian origins (which he considers
remain unsolved), he quotes as an example of their range, the opinion of
C. Jullian (_Revue des Etudes Anciennes_, 1903, p. 383), "There is no
Iberian race. The Iberians were a state constituted at latest towards
the 6th century, in the valley of the Ebro, which received, either from
strangers or from the indigenous peoples, the name of the river as _nom
de guerre_."
[1050] J. Vinson (_Rev. de linguistique_, XL. 1907, pp. 5, 211) divides
the Iberian inscriptions into three groups, each of which, he believes,
represents a different language.
[1051] _The Mediterranean Race_, 1901.
[1052] _Dict. des sc. anthr._ p. 247, and _Rev. de l'Ecole d'Anthr._
XVII. 1907, p. 365.
[1053] _Geschichte des Altertums_, I. 2, 1909, p. 723.
[1054] _Manuel d'Archeologie prehistorique_, II. 1910, p. 27 _n._, see
also p. 22 for archaeological proofs of "ethnographic distinctions."
[1055] _Hist. de la Gaule_, I. Chap. IV. The author makes it clear,
however, that his "Ligurians" are not necessarily an ethnic unit, "De
l'unite de nom, ne concluons pas a l'unite de race" (119), and later (p.
120), "Ne considerons donc pas les Ligures comme les representants
uniformes d'une race determinee. Ils sont la population qui habitait
l'Europe occidentale avant les invasions connues des Celtes ou des
Etrusques, avant la naissance des peuples latin ou ibere. Ils ne sont
pas autre chose."
[1056] _Gaule av. Gaulois_, p. 248.
[1057] _Loc. cit._ p. 23 _n._ I.
[1058] _Early Age of Greece_, 1901, p. 237 ff., and "Who were the
Romans?" _Proc. Brit. Acad._ III. 19, 1908, p. 3.
[1059] See R. S. Conway, Art. "Liguria," _Ency. Brit._ 1911. It may be
noted, however, as Feist points out (_Ausbreitung und Herkunft des
Indogermanen_, 1913, p. 368), this hypothesis rests on slight
foundations ("ruht auf schwachen Fuessen").
[1060] _Arii e Italici_, p. 60.
[1061] _Corresbl. d. d. Ges. f. Anthrop._, Feb. 1898, p. 12.
[1062] Yet Ligurians are actually planted on the North Atlantic coast of
Spain by S. Sempere y Miguel (_Revista de Ciencias Historicas_, I. v.
1887).
[1063] _Manuel d'Archeologie prehistorique_, II. 1910, p. 22.
[1064] _Caesar's Conquest of Gaul_, 1911, p. 287.
[1065] "La Civilisation Primitive dans la Sicilie Orientale," in
_L'Anthropologie_, 1897, p. 130 sq.; and p. 295 sq.
[1066] _Praehistorische Studien aus Sicilien_, quoted by Patroni.
[1067] p. 130.
[1068] See p. 21.
[1069] It may be mentioned that while Penka makes the Siculi Illyrians
from Upper Italy ("Zur Palaeoethnologie Mittel-u. Suedeuropas," in _Wiener
Anthrop. Ges._ 1897, p. 18), E. A. Freeman holds that they were not only
Aryans, but closely akin to the Romans, speaking "an undeveloped Latin,"
or "something which did not differ more widely from Latin than one
dialect of Greek differed from another" (_The History of Sicily_, etc.,
I. p. 488). On the Siculi and Sicani, see E. Meyer, _Geschichte des
Altertums_, 1909, I. 2, p. 723, also Art. "Sicily, History," _Ency.
Brit._ 1911. Dechelette (_Manuel d'Archeologie prehistorique_, II. 1910,
p. 17) suggests that Sikelos or Siculus, the eponymous hero of Sicily,
may have been merely the personification of the typical Ligurian
implement, the bronze _sickle_ (Lat. secula, sicula).
[1070] I. 22.
[1071] VI. 2.
[1072] _Parte I. Dati Antropologici ed Etnologici_, Rome, 1896.
[1073] p. 182.
[1074] _Atti Soc. Rom. d' Antrop._ 1896, pp. 179 and 201.
[1075] Cf. W. Z. Ripley, "Racial Geography of Europe," _Pop. Sci.
Monthly_, New York, 1897-9, and _The Races of Europe_, 1900, pp. 54,
175.
[1076] _Arii e Italici_, p. 188. Hence for these Italian Ligurians he
claims the name of "Italici," which he refuses to extend to the Aryan
intruders in the peninsula. "A questi primi abitatori spetta
legittimamente il nome di Italici, non a popolazioni successive [Aryan
Umbrians], che avrebbero sloggiato i primi abitanti" (p. 60). The result
is a little confusing, "Italic" being now the accepted name of the
Italian branch of the Aryan linguistic family, and also commonly applied
to the Aryans of this Italic speech, although the word _Italia_ itself
may have been indigenous (Ligurian) and not introduced by the Aryans. It
would perhaps be better to regard "Italia" as a "geographical
expression" applicable to all its inhabitants, whatever their origin or
speech.
[1077] _Science Progress_, July, 1894. It will be noticed that the
facts, accepted by all, are differently interpreted by Beddoe and Sergi,
the latter taking the long-headed element in North Italy as the
aboriginal (Ligurian), modified by the later intrusion of round-headed
Aryan Slavs, Teutons, and especially Kelts, while Beddoe seems to regard
the broad-headed Alpine as the original, afterwards modified by
intrusive long-headed types "Germanic, Slavic, or of doubtful origin."
Either view would no doubt account for the present relations; but
Sergi's study of the prehistoric remains (see above) seems to compel
acceptance of his explanation. From the statistics an average height of
not more than 5 ft. 4 in. results for the whole of Italy.
[1078] For the identification of the Mediterranean race in Greece with
the Pelasgians, see W. Ridgeway, _Early Age of Greece_, I. 1901, though
Ripley contends (_The Races of Europe_, 1900, p. 407), "Positively no
anthropological data on the matter exist."
[1079] [Greek: To ton Pelasgon genos Hellenikon.]
[1080] I. 57.
[1081] _Il._ X. 429; _Od._ XIX. 177.
[1082] "We recognize in the Pelasgi an ancient and honourable race,
ante-Hellenic, it is true, but distinguished from the Hellenes only in
the political and social development of their age.... Herodotus and
others take a prejudiced view when, reasoning back from the subsequent
Tyrrhenian Pelasgi, they call the ancient Pelasgians a rude and
worthless race, their language barbarous, and their deities nameless.
Numerous traditionary accounts, of undoubted authenticity, describe them
as a brave, moral, and honourable people, which was less a distinct
stock and tribe, than a race united by a resemblance in manners and the
forms of life" (W. Wachsmuth, _The Historical Antiquities of the
Greeks_, etc., Engl. ed. 1837, I. p. 39). Remarkable words to have been
written before the recent revelations of archaeology in Hellas.
[1083] That the two cultures went on for a long time side by side is
evident from the different social institutions and religious ideas
prevailing in different parts of Hellas during the strictly historic
period.
[1084] [Greek: kata ten Hellada pasan epepolase] (Strabo, V. 220). This
might almost be translated, "they flooded the whole of Greece."
[1085] _Early Age of Greece_, 1901, Chaps. I. and II.
[1086] _Od._ XIX.
[1087] Thuc. I. 3.
[1088] This idea of an independent evolution of western (European)
culture is steadily gaining ground, and is strenuously advocated,
amongst others, by M. Salomon Reinach, who has made a vigorous attack on
what he calls the "oriental mirage," _i.e._ the delusion which sees
nothing but Asiatic or Egyptian influences everywhere. Sergi of course
goes further, regarding the Mediterranean (Iberian, Ligurian, Pelasgian)
cultures not only as local growths, but as independent both of Asiatics
and of the rude Aryan hordes, who came rather as destroyers than
civilisers. This is one of the fundamental ideas pervading the whole of
his _Arii e Italici_, and some earlier writings.
[1089] Pausanias, III. 20. 5.
[1090] G. Sergi, _The Mediterranean Race_, 1901. In the main he is
supported by philologists. "The languages of the indigenous peoples
throughout Asia Minor and the Aegean area are commonly believed to have
been non-Indo-European." H. M. Chadwick, _The Heroic Age_, 1912, p. 179
n.
[1091] W. Ridgeway, _The Early Age of Greece_, 1901, p. 681 ff.
[1092] _The Dawn of History_, 1911, p. 40. For his views on Pelasgians,
see _Journ. Hell. St._ 1907, p. 170, and the Art. "Pelasgians" in _Ency.
Brit._ 1911.
[1093] E. Petersen and F. von Luschan, _Reisen in Lykien_, 1889.
[1094] W. Z. Ripley, _The Races of Europe_, p. 404 ff. The map (facing
p. 402) does not include Greece, and the grouping is based on language,
not race.
[1095] The Mykenaean skull found by Bent at Antiparos is described as
"abnormally dolichocephalic." W. Ridgeway, _Early Age of Greece_, I.
1901, p. 78.
[1096] But in Ridgeway's view the "classical Hellenes" were descendants
of tall fair-haired invaders from the North, and in this he has the
concurrence of J. L. Myres, _The Dawn of History_, 1911, p. 209.
[1097] _Mitt. d. K. d. Inst. Athen._ XXX. See H. R. Hall, _Ancient
History of the Near East_, 1913, pp. 61-4.
[1098] _Geschichte des Altertums_, I. 2, 1909, Sec. 507.
[1099] For a discussion of the meaning of "Pelasgic Argos" see H. M.
Chadwick, _The Heroic Age_, 1912, pp. 274 ff. and 278-9, and for his
criticism of Meyer, p. 285.
[1100] But see W. Ridgeway, _Early Age of Greece_, I. 1901, p. 138 ff.
[1101] Art. "Indo-European Languages," _Ency. Brit._ 1911.
[1102] R. S. Conway, Art. "Aegean Civilisation," in _Ency. Brit._ 1911,
whence this summary is derived, including the chronology, which is not
in all respects universally adopted (see p. 27). For a full discussion
of the chronology see J. Dechelette, _Manuel d'Archeologie
prehistorique_, Vol. II. 1910, _Archeologie celtique ou
protohistorique_, Ch. II. Sec. V. Chronologie egeenne, p. 54 ff.
[1103] In his valuable and comprehensive work, _Africa: Antropologia
della Stirpe Camitica_, Turin, 1897. It must not be supposed that this
classification is unchallenged. T. A. Joyce, "Hamitic Races and
Languages," _Ency. Brit._ 1911, points out that it is impossible to
prove the connection between the Eastern and Northern Hamites. The
former have a brown skin, with frizzy hair, and are nomadic or
semi-nomadic pastors; the latter, whom he would call not Hamites at all,
but the Libyan variety of the Mediterranean race, are a white people,
with curly hair, and their purest representatives, the Berbers, are
agriculturalists. For the fullest and most recent treatment of the
subject see the monumental work of Oric Bates, _The Eastern Libyans: An
Essay_, 1913, with bibliography.
[1104] "Les Maures du Senegal," _L'Anthropologie_, 1896, p. 258 sq.
[1105] That is, the _Sanhaja-an Litham_, those who wear the _litham_ or
veil, which is needed to protect them from the sand, but has now
acquired religious significance, and is never worn by the "Moors."
[1106] p. 269.
[1107] See F. Stuhlmann's invaluable work on African culture and race
distribution, _Handwerk und Industrie in Ostafrika_, 1910, especially
the map showing the distribution of the Hamites, Pl. II. B.
[1108] The Kababish and Baggara tribes, chief mainstays of former
Sudanese revolts, claim to be of unsullied Arab descent with long
fictitious pedigrees going back to early Muhammadan times (see p. 74).
[1109] "Les Chaouias," _L'Anthropologie_, 1897, p. 14.
[1110] P. 17.
[1111] The words collected by Sir H. H. Johnston at Dwirat in Tunis show
a great resemblance with the language of the Saharan Tuaregs, and the
sheikh of that place "admitted that his people could understand and make
themselves understood by those fierce nomads, who range between the
southern frontier of Algeria and Tunis and the Sudan" (_Geogr. Jour._,
June, 1898, p. 590).
[1112] Cf. Meinhof, _Die Moderne Sprachforschung in Africa_, 1910.
[1113] _Ti-bu_ = "Rock People"; cf. _Kanem-bu_ = "Kanem People,"
southernmost branch of the family on north side of Lake Chad.
[1114] [Greek: Onton de kai auton ede mallon Aithiopon] (I. 8). I take
[Greek: ede], which has caused some trouble to commentators, here to
mean that, as you advance southwards from the Mediterranean seaboard,
you find yourself on entering Garamantian territory already rather
amongst Ethiopians than Libyans.
[1115] Reclus, Eng. ed. Vol. XI. p. 429. For the complicated ancestral
mixture producing the Tibu see Sir H. H. Johnston, "A Survey of the
Ethnography of Africa," _Journ. Roy. Anthr. Inst._ XLIII. 1913, p. 386.
[1116] Reclus, Eng. ed. Vol. XI. p. 430.
[1117] From the enormous sheets of tuffs near the Kharga Oasis Zettel,
geologist of G. Rohlf's expedition in 1876, considered that even this
sandy waste might have supported a rich vegetation in Quaternary times.
[1118] See _Histoire de la Civilisation Egyptienne_, G. Jequier, 1913,
p. 53 ff. Also, concerning pottery, E. Naville, "The Origin of Egyptian
Civilisation," _Journ. Roy. Anthr. Inst._ XXXVII. 1907, p. 203.
[1119] The Egyptians themselves had a tradition that when Menes moved
north he found the delta still under water. The sea reached almost as
far as the Fayum, and the whole valley, except the Thebais, was a
malarious swamp (Herod. II. 4). Thus late into historic times memories
still survived that the delta was of relatively recent formation, and
that the _Retu_ (_Romitu_ of the Pyramid texts, later _Rotu_, _Romi_,
etc.) had already developed their social system before the Lower Nile
valley was inhabitable. Hence whether the Nile took 20,000 years
(Schweinfurth) or over 70,000, as others hold, to fill in its estuary,
the beginning of the Egyptian prehistoric period must still be set back
many millenniums before the new era. "Ce que nous savons du Sahara,
lui-meme alors sillonne de rivieres, atteste qu'il [the delta] ne devait
pas etre habitable, pas etre constitue a l'epoque quaternaire" (M.
Zaborowski, _Bul. Soc. d'Anthrop._ 1896, p. 655).
[1120] G. Jequier, _Histoire de la Civilisation Egyptienne_, 1913, p.
95, but see E. Naville, "The Origin of Egyptian Civilisation," _Journ.
Roy. Anthr. Inst._ XXXVII. 1907, p. 209.
[1121] _Handwerk und Industrie in Ostafrika_, 1910, p. 143.
[1122] "Migrations," _Journ. Anthr. Inst._ XXXVI. 1906.
[1123] "A Survey of the Ethnography of Africa," _Journ. Roy. Anthr.
Inst._ XLIII. 1913.
[1124] See p. 482 below.
[1125] For an alternative route see E. Naville, "The Origin of Egyptian
Civilisation," _Journ. Roy. Anthr. Inst._ XXXVII. 1907, p. 209; J. L.
Myres, _The Dawn of History_, 1911, pp. 56-7, also p. 65, and the
criticism of Elliot Smith, _The Ancient Egyptians_, 1911, pp. 88-9.
[1126] _The Ancient Egyptians_, 1911.
[1127] _The Ancient Egyptians_, 1911, pp. 56, 58, 62.
[1128] _The Ancient Egyptians_, 1911, pp. 104-5.
[1129] G. Elliot Smith, _loc. cit._ pp. 97 and 147.
[1130] E. Meyer, _Geschichte des Altertums_, I. 2, 1909, Sec.Sec. 229, 232,
253.
[1131] G. Elliot Smith, _The Ancient Egyptians_, 1911, p. 108, but for a
different interpretation see J. L. Myres, _The Dawn of History_, 1911
pp. 51 and 65.
[1132] _Loc. cit._ p. 147.
[1133] H. R. Hall (_The Ancient History of the Near East_, 1913, p. 87
_n._ 3) sees "no resemblance whatever between the facial traits of the
Memphite grandees of the Old Kingdom and those of Hittites, Syrians, or
modern Anatolians, Armenians or Kurds. They were much more like South
Europeans, like modern Italians or Cretans."
[1134] Cf. H. H. Johnston, "A Survey of the Ethnography of Africa,"
_Journ. Roy. Anthr. Soc._ XLIII. 1913, p. 383, and also E. Naville, "The
Origin of Egyptian Civilisation," _Journ. Roy. Anthr. Inst._ XXXVII.
1907, p. 210.
[1135] G. A. Reisner, "The Early Dynastic Cemeteries of Naga-ed-Der,"
Part 1. Vol. II. of _University of California Publications_, 1908,
summarised by L. W. King, _History of Sumer and Akkad_, 1910, pp. 326,
334.
[1136] _Geschichte des Altertums_, I. 2, 1909, p. 156.
[1137] _Journ. Anthr. Inst._ XXXIII. 1903, XXXV. 1905, XXXVI. 1906, and
_Journ. Roy. Anthr. Inst._ XXXVIII. 1908.
[1138] Cf. H. H. Johnston, "A Survey of the Ethnography of Africa,"
_Journ. Roy. Anthr. Inst._ XLIII. 1913, p. 382.
[1139] No physical affinity is suggested. The Lesghian tribes "betray an
accentuated brachycephaly, equal to that of the pure Mongols about the
Caspians." W. Z. Ripley, _The Races of Europe_, p. 440.
[1140] J. Deniker, _The Races of Man_, 1900, p. 439, places the Fulahs
in a separate group, the Fulah-Zandeh group. Cf. also A. C. Haddon, _The
Wanderings of Peoples_, 1911, p. 59.
[1141] _Loc. cit._ p. 401 _n._
[1142] _Africa_, 1897, _passim_.
[1143] "Some Aspects of the Hamitic Problem in the Anglo-Egyptian
Sudan," _Journ. Roy. Anthr. Inst._ XLIII. 1913, p. 604. See also C.
Crossland, _Desert and Water Gardens of the Red Sea_, 1913.
[1144] _Genealogies of the Somal_, 1896.
[1145] "Reisestudien in den Somalilaendern," _Globus_, LXX. p. 33 sq.
[1146] _Ethnographie Nord-Ost-Afrikas: Die geistige Kultur der Danakil,
Galla u. Somal_, 1896, 2 vols.
[1147] M. Merker, _Die Masai_, 1904; A. C. Hollis, _The Masai, their
Language and Folklore_, 1905. C. Dundas, "The Organization and Laws of
some Bantu Tribes in East Africa," _Journ. Roy. Anthr. Inst._ XLV. 1915,
pp. 236-7, thinks that the power of the Masai was over-rated, and that
the Galla were really a fiercer race. He quotes Krapf, "Give me the
Galla and I have Central Africa." The _Nandi_ (an allied tribe) are
described by A. C. Hollis, 1909, and _The Suk_ by M. W. H. Beech, 1911.
[1148] A. E. W. Gleichen, _Rennell Rodd's Mission to Menelik_, 1897.
[1149] Among recent works on Abyssinia may be mentioned A. B. Wylde,
_Modern Abyssinia_, 1901; H. Weld Blundell, "A Journey through
Abyssinia," _Geog. Journ._ XV. 1900, and "Exploration in the Abai
Basin," _ib._ XXVII. 1906; the _Anthropological Survey of Abyssinia_
published by the French Government in 1911; and various publications of
the Princeton University Expedition to Abyssinia, edited by E. Littmann.
CHAPTER XIV
THE CAUCASIC PEOPLES (_continued_)
THE SEMITES--Cradle, Origins, and Migrations--Divisions: Semitic
Migrations--Babylonia, People and Civilisation--Assyria, People
and Civilisation--Syria and Palestine--_Canaanites_: _Amorites_:
_Phoenicians_--_The Jews_--Origins--Early and Later Dispersions--
Diverse Physical Types--Present Range and Population--
THE HITTITES--Conflicting Theories--_The Arabs_--Spread of the
Arab Race and Language--Semitic Monotheism--Its Evolution.
The Himyaritic immigrants, who still hold sway in a foreign land, have
long ceased to exist as a distinct nationality in their own country,
where they had nevertheless ages ago founded flourishing empires,
centres of one of the very oldest civilisations of which there is any
record. Should future research confirm the now generally received view
that Hamites and Semites are fundamentally of one stock, a view based
both on physical and linguistic data[1150], the cradle of the Semitic
branch will also probably be traced to South Arabia, and more
particularly to that south-western region known to the ancients as
Arabia Felix, _i.e._ the Yemen of the Arabs. While Asia and Africa were
still partly separated in the north by a broad marine inlet before the
formation of the Nile delta, easy communication was afforded between the
two continents farther south at the head of the Gulf of Aden, where they
are still almost contiguous. By this route the primitive Hamito-Semitic
populations may have moved either westwards into Africa, or, as has also
been suggested, eastwards into Asia, where in the course of ages the
Semitic type became specialised.
On this assumption South Arabia would necessarily be the first home of
the Semites, who in later times spread thence north and east. They
appear as _Babylonians_ and _Assyrians_ in Mesopotamia; as _Phoenicians_
on the Syrian coast; as _Arabs_ on the Nejd steppe; as _Canaanites_,
_Moabites_ and others in and about Palestine; as _Amorites_ (_Aramaeans,
Syrians_) in Syria and Asia Minor.
This is the common view of Semitic origins and early migrations, but as
practically no systematic excavations have been possible in Arabia,
owing to political conditions and the attitude of the inhabitants,
definite archaeological or anthropological proofs are still lacking. The
hypothesis would, however, seem to harmonise well with all the known
conditions. In the first place is to be considered the very narrow area
occupied by the Semites, both absolutely and relatively to the domains
of the other fundamental ethnical groups. While the Mongols are found in
possession of the greater part of Asia, and the Hamites with the
Mediterraneans are diffused over the whole of North Africa, South and
West Europe since the Stone Ages, the Semites, excluding later
expansions--Himyarites to Abyssinia, Phoenicians to the shores of the
Mediterranean, Moslem Arabs to Africa, Irania, and Transoxiana--have
always been confined to the south-west corner of Asia, comprising very
little more than the Arabian Peninsula, Mesopotamia, Syria, and
(doubtfully) parts of Asia Minor. Moreover the whole mental outlook of
the Semites, their mode of thought, their religion and organisation,
indicate their derivation from a desert people; while in Arabia are
found at the present time the purest examples not only of Semitic type,
but also of Semitic speech[1151]. Their early history, however, as
pointed out above, still awaits the spade of the archaeologist, and the
earliest migrations that can be definitely traced are in the form of
invasions of already established states[1152].
The first great wave of Semitic migration from Arabia is placed in the
fourth millennium B.C., 3500 to 2500 or earlier; it affected Babylonia
and probably Syria and Palestine, judging from the Palestinian
place-names belonging to this "Babylonian-Semitic" period, and the close
connection between Palestine and Babylonia in culture and in religious
ideas, indicating prehistoric relationship[1153]. A second wave,
Winckler's Canaanitic or Amoritic migration, followed in the third
millennium, covering Babylonia, laying the foundations of the Assyrian
Empire, invading Syria and Palestine (Phoenicians, Amorites) and
possibly later Egypt (_Hyksos_). A third wave, the Aramaean, which
spread over Babylonia, Mesopotamia and Syria in the second millennium,
was preceded by the swarming into Syria from the desert of the Khabiri
(Habiru) or Hebrews (Edomites, Moabites, Ammonites and Israelites among
others). From the same area the Suti pressed into Babylonia about 1100,
followed by another branch, the Chaldeans from Eastern Arabia.
These are but a few of the earlier waves of migration from the south of
which traces can be detected in Western Asia. Of all invasions from the
north, that of the Hittites is the most important and the most
confusing. The Hittites appear to have moved south from Cappadocia about
2000 B.C., and they are found warring against Babylonia in the
eighteenth century. A Hittite dynasty flourished at Mittanni 1420-1411
and in the fourteenth and thirteenth centuries they conquered and
largely occupied Syria[1154]. Invasions of Phrygians and Philistines
from the west followed the breaking up of the Hittite Empire. The last
great Semitic migration was the most widespread of all. "It issued, like
its predecessors, along the whole margin of the desert, and in the
course of a century had flooded not only Syria and Egypt, but all North
Africa and Spain; it had occupied Sicily, raided Constance, and in
France was only checked at Poitiers in 732. Eastward it flooded Persia,
founded an empire in India, and carried war and commerce by sea past
Singapore[1155]."
"Thus Western Asia has been swept times and again, almost without
number, by conquering hordes and the no less severe ethnical
disturbances of peaceful infiltrations converging from every point of
the compass in turn.... How, then, is it possible to learn anything
today from the contents of this cauldron, filled with such an assortment
of ingredients and still seething from the effects of the disturbance
incidental to the harsh mixing of such incompatible elements[1156]?"
Some of the problems must for the present be regarded as insoluble, but
with the evidence provided by archaeologists and anthropologists an
attempt may be made to read the ethnological history in these obscure
regions.
The earliest Semitic wave was traceable in Babylonia, but, as seen
above, opinions differ as to its origin and date. "At what period the
Semites first invaded Babylonia, when and where they first attained
supremacy, are not yet matters of history. We find Semites in the land
and in possession of considerable power almost as early as we can go
back[1157]." The characteristic Semitic features are clearly marked, and
the language is closely connected with Canaanitic and Assyrian[1158].
From the monuments we learn that the Babylonian Semites had full beards
and wore their hair long, contrasting sharply with the shaven Sumerians,
and thus gaining the epithet "the black-headed ones." In nose and lips,
as in dress, they are clearly distinct from the Sumerian type[1159].
When history commences, the inhabitants of Babylonia were already highly
civilised. They lived in towns, containing great temples, and were
organised in distinct classes or occupations, and possessed much wealth
in sheep and cattle, manufactured goods, gold, silver and copper.
Engraving on metals and precious stones, statuary, architecture,
pottery, weaving and embroidery, all show a high level of workmanship.
They possessed an elaborate and efficient system of writing, extensively
used and widely understood, consisting of a number of signs, obviously
descended from a form of picture writing, but conventionalised to an
extent that usually precludes the recognition of the original pictures.
This writing was made by the impression of a stylus on blocks or cakes
of fine clay while still quite soft. These "tablets" were sun-dried, but
occasionally baked hard. This cuneiform writing was adopted by, or was
common to, many neighbouring nations, being freely used in Elam,
Armenia and Northern Mesopotamia as far as Cappadocia.
Assyrian culture was founded upon that of Babylonia, but the Assyrians
appear to have differed from the Babylonians in character, though not in
physical type[1160], while they were closely related in speech. "The
Assyrians differed markedly from the Babylonians in national character.
They were more robust, warlike, fierce, than the mild industrial people
of the south. It is doubtful if they were much devoted to agriculture or
distinguished for manufactures, arts and crafts. They were essentially a
military folk. The king was a despot at home, but the general of the
army abroad. The whole organisation of the state was for war. The
agriculture was left to serfs or slaves. The manufactures, weaving at
any rate, were done by women. The guilds of workmen were probably
foreigners, as the merchants mostly were. The great temples and palaces,
walls and moats, were constructed by captives.... For the greater part
of its existence Assyria was the scourge of the nations and sucked the
blood of other races. It lived on the tribute of subject states, and
conquest ever meant added tribute in all necessaries and luxuries of
life, beside an annual demand for men and horses, cattle and sheep,
grain and wool to supply the needs of the army and the city[1161]."
The early history of Syria and Palestine is by no means clear, although
much light has been shed in recent years by the excavations of R. A. S.
Macalister at Gezer[1162], where remains were found of a pre-Semitic
race, of Ernst Sellin at Tell Ta'anek and Jericho[1163], and the labours
of the _Deutscher Palaestina-Verein_ and especially G. Schumacher at
Megiddo[1164]. Caves apparently occupied by man in the Neolithic period
were discovered at Gezer, and are dated at about 3500 to 3000 B.C. from
their position below layers in which Egyptian scarabs appear. Fragments
of bones give indications of the physical type. None of the individuals
exceeded 5 ft. 7 inches (1.702 m.) in height, and most were under 5 ft.
4 inches (1.626 m.). They were muscular, with elongated crania and thick
heavy skull-bones. From their physical characters it could be clearly
seen that they did not belong to the Semitic race. They burned their
dead, a non-Semitic custom, a cave being fitted up as a crematorium,
with a chimney cut up through the solid rock to secure a good
draught[1165].
The first great influx of Semitic nomads is conjectured to have reached
Babylonia, not from the south, but from the north-west, after traversing
the Syrian coast lands. They left colonists behind them in this region,
who afterwards as the Amurru (Amorites) pressed on in their turn into
Babylonia and established the earliest independent dynasty in
Babylon[1166].
The second great wave of Semitic migration appears to have included the
Phoenicians[1167], so called by the Greeks, though they called
themselves Canaanites and their land Canaan[1168], and are referred to
in the Old Testament, as in inscriptions at Tyre, as "Sidonians." They
themselves had a tradition that their early home was on the Persian
Gulf, a view held by Theodore Bent and others[1169], and recent
discoveries emphasise the close cultural (not necessarily racial)
connection between Palestine and Babylonia[1170].
The weakening of Egyptian hold upon Palestine about the fourteenth
century B.C. encouraged incursions of restless Habiru (Habiri) from the
Syrian deserts, commonly identified with the Hebrews, and invasions of
Hittites from the north. In the thirteenth century Egypt recovered
Palestine, leaving the Hittites in possession of Syria. About this time
the coast was invaded by Levantines, including the Purasati, in whom
may perhaps be recognised the Philistines, who gave their name to
Palestine[1171].
With the Hebrew or Israelitish inhabitants of south Syria (Canaan,
Palestine, "Land of Promise") we are here concerned only in so far as
they form a distinct branch of the Semitic family. The term
"Jews[1172]," properly indicating the children of Judah, fourth son of
Jacob, has long been applied generally to the whole people, who since
the disappearance of the ten northern tribes have been mainly
represented by the tribe of Judah, a remnant of Benjamin and a few
Levites, _i.e._ the section of the nation which to the number of some
50,000 returned to south Palestine (kingdom of Judaea) after the
Babylonian captivity. These were doubtless later joined by some of the
dispersed northern tribes, who from Jacob's alternative name were
commonly called the "ten tribes of Israel." But all such Israelites had
lost their separate nationality, and were consequently absorbed in the
royal tribe of Judah. Since the suppression of the various revolts under
the Empire, the Judaei themselves have been a dispersed nationality, and
even before those events numerous settlements had been made in different
parts of the Greek and Roman worlds, as far west as Tripolitana, and
also in Arabia and Abyssinia.
But most of the present communities probably descend from those of the
great dispersion after the fall of Jerusalem (70 A.D.), increased by
considerable accessions of converted "Gentiles," for the assumption that
they have made few or no converts is no longer tenable. In exile they
have been far more a religious body than a broken nation, and as such
they could not fail under favourable conditions to spread their
teachings, not only amongst their Christian slaves, but also amongst
peoples, such as the Abyssinian Falashas, of lower culture than
themselves. In pre-Muhammadan times many Arabs of Yemen and other
districts had conformed, and some of their Jewish kings (Asad Abu-Karib,
Dhu Nowas, and others) are still remembered. About the seventh century
all the Khazars--a renowned Turki people of the Volga, the Crimea, and
the Caspian--accepted Judaism, though they later conformed to Russian
orthodoxy. The Visigoth persecution of the Spanish Jews (fifth and sixth
centuries) was largely due to their proselytising zeal, against which,
as well as against Jewish and Christian mixed marriages, numerous papal
decrees were issued in medieval times.
To this process of miscegenation is attributed the great variety of
physical features observed amongst the Jews of different
countries[1173], while the distinctly red type cropping out almost
everywhere has been traced by Sayce and others to primordial
interminglings with the Amorites ("Red People"). "Uniformity only exists
in the books and not in reality. There are Jews with light and with dark
eyes, Jews with straight and with curly hair, Jews with high and narrow
and Jews with short and broad, noses; their cephalic index oscillates
between 65 and 98--as far as this index ever oscillates in the _genus
homo_[1174]!" Nevertheless certain marked characteristics--large hooked
nose, prominent watery eyes, thick pendulous and almost everted under
lip, rough frizzly lustreless hair--are sufficiently general to be
regarded as racial traits.
The race is richly endowed with the most varied qualities, as shown by
the whole tenour of their history. Originally pure nomads, they became
excellent agriculturists after the settlement in Canaan, and since then
they have given proof of the highest capacity for science, letters,
erudition of all kinds, finance, music, and diplomacy. The reputation of
the medieval Arabs as restorers of learning is largely due to their wise
tolerance of the enlightened Jewish communities in their midst, and on
the other hand Spain and Portugal have never recovered from the national
loss sustained by the expulsion of the Jews in the fourteenth and
fifteenth centuries. In late years the persecutions, especially in
Russia, have caused a fresh exodus from the east of Europe, and by the
aid of philanthropic capitalists flourishing agricultural settlements
have been founded in Palestine and Argentina. From statistics taken in
various places up to 1911 the Jewish communities are at present
estimated at about 12,000,000, of whom three-fourths are in Europe,
380,000 in Africa, 500,000 in Asia, the rest in America and
Australia[1175].
Intimately associated with all these Aramaic Canaanitic Semites were a
mysterious people who have been identified with the _Hittites_[1176] of
Scripture, and to whom this name has been extended by common consent.
They are also identified with the _Kheta_ of the Egyptian
monuments[1177], as well as with the _Khatti_ of the Assyrian cuneiform
texts. Indeed all these are, without any clear proof, assumed to be the
same people, and to them are ascribed a considerable number of stones,
cylinders, and gems from time to time picked up at various points
between the Middle Euphrates and the Mediterranean, engraved in a kind
of hieroglyphic or rather pictorial script, which has been variously
deciphered according to the bias or fancy of epigraphists. This simply
means that the "Hittite texts" have not yet been interpreted, and are
likely to remain unexplained, until a clue is found in some bilingual
document, such as the Rosetta Stone, which surrendered the secret of the
Egyptian hieroglyphs. L. Messerschmidt, editor of a number of Hittite
texts[1178], declared (in 1902) that only one sign in two hundred had
been interpreted with any certainty[1179], and although the system of A.
H. Sayce[1180] is based on a scientific plan, his decipherments must for
the present remain uncertain. The important tablets found by H. Winckler
in 1907[1181] at Boghaz Keui in Cappadocia, identified with Khatti, the
Hittite capital, have thrown much light on Hittite history, and support
many of Sayce's conjectures. The records show that the Hittites were
one of the great nations of antiquity, with a power extending at its
prime from the Asiatic coast of the Aegean to Mesopotamia, and from the
Black Sea to Kadesh on the Orontes, a power which neither Egypt nor
Assyria could withstand. "It is still not certain to which of the great
families of nations they belonged. The suggestion has been made that
their language has certain Indo-European characteristics; but for the
present it is safer to regard them as an indigenous race of Asia Minor.
Their strongly-marked facial type, with long, straight nose and receding
forehead and chin, is strikingly reproduced on all their monuments, and
suggests no comparison with Aryan or Semitic stocks[1182]."
F. von Luschan, however, is able to throw some light on the ethnological
history of the Hittites. When investigating the early inhabitants of
Western Asia he was constantly struck by the appearance of a markedly
non-Semitic type, which he called "Armenoid." The most typical were the
Tahtadji or woodcutters of Western Lycia living up in the mountains and
totally distinct in every way from their Mohammedan neighbours. "Their
somatic characters are remarkably homogeneous; they have a tawny white
skin, much hair on the face, straight hair, dark brown eyes, a narrow,
generally aquiline nose, and a very short and high head. The cephalic
index varies only from 82 to 91, with a maximum frequency of 86[1183]."
Similar types were found in the Bektash, who are town-dwellers in Lycia,
and in the Ansariyeh in Northern Syria. In Upper Mesopotamia these
features occur again among the Kyzylbash, and in Western Kurdistan among
the Yezidi. "We find a small minority of groups possessing a similarity
of creed and a remarkable uniformity of type, scattered over a vast part
of Western Asia. I see no other way to account for this fact than to
assume that the members of all these sects are the remains of an old
homogeneous population, which have preserved their religion and have
therefore refrained from intermarriage with strangers and so preserved
their old physical characteristics[1184]." They all speak the languages
of their orthodox neighbours, Turkish, Arabic and Kurdish, but are
absolutely homogeneous as to their somatic characters. Two other groups
with the same physical type are the Druses of the Lebanon and
Antilebanos country, who speak Arabic and pass officially as
Mohammedans, though their secret creed contains many Christian, Jewish
and pantheistic elements. To the north of the Druses are the Christian
Maronites, said to be the descendants of a Monophysite sect, separated
from the common Christian Church after the Council of Chalcedon in 451
A.D. "Partly through their isolation in the mountains, partly through
their not intermarrying with their Mahometan or Druse neighbours, the
Maronites of today have preserved an old type in almost marvellous
purity. In no other Oriental group is there a greater number of men with
extreme height of the skull and excessive flattening of the occipital
region than among the Maronites.... Very often their occiput is so steep
that one is again and again inclined to think of artificial
deformation." But "no such possibility is found[1185]."
These hypsibrachycephalic groups with high narrow noses, found also in
Persia, among Turks, Greeks, and still more commonly among Armenians,
were first (1892) called by von Luschan "Armenoid," but "there can be no
doubt that they are all descended from tribes belonging to the great
Hittite Empire. So it is the type of the Hittites that has been
preserved in all these groups for more than 3000 years[1186]." As to
their primordial home von Luschan connects them with the "Alpine Race"
of Central Europe, but leaves it an open question whether the Hittites
came from Central Europe, or the Alpine Race from Western Asia, though
inclining to the latter view. The high narrow nose (the essential
somatic difference between the Hittites and the other brachycephalic
Arabs) "originated as a merely accidental mutation and was then locally
fixed, either by a certain tendency of taste and fashion or by long,
perhaps millennial in-breeding. The 'Hittite nose' has finally become a
dominant characteristic in the Mendelian sense, and we see it, not only
in the actual geographical province of the Alpine Race, but often enough
also here in England[1186]."
In Arabia itself inscriptions point to the early existence of civilised
kingdoms, among which those of the Sabaeans[1187] and the
Minaeans[1188] stand out most clearly, though their dates and even their
chronological order are much disputed. Possibly both lasted until the
rise of the Himyarites at the beginning of the Christian era. All are
agreed however that Arabian civilisation reached a very high level in
the centuries preceding the birth of the Prophet, before the increase in
shipping led to the abandonment of the caravan trade.