THE RACES OF EUROPE AND THEIR ORIGIN
We have spoken in the previous chapter of the three chief races of
Europe, but before proceeding to discuss them in detail it is necessary
to clear the ground of certain misconceptions and difficulties.
The first of these is the notion that nationality has anything to do
with race, in the anthropological sense. There is much to be said for
the view that the European civilisations owe their development largely
to the mingling of races which has occurred within the area; it is at
least certain that no European nation, whatever the fervour of its
citizens' patriotism, is of anthropologically pure race. There is no
British race, no French race, no German race, even though the word
Germanic is sometimes applied to one of the strains which occurs in the
German Empire. We recognise this fact, of course, in our popular
language, for the contrast between the Briton of Saxon race and the
Briton of Celtic race is a favourite literary topic. Unfortunately for
accuracy, the people within the British area who speak Celtic languages
are not all of the same race, and there is nothing more certain than the
fact that few of them, if any, have any distinct trace of Celtic blood.
Although in literature also the comparison between the "Celts" of
Brittany and the "Celts" of Wales and western Great Britain generally is
a favourite one, upon which many deductions have been based, it is
certain that the Bretons are not homogeneous, and that they have
language but not race in common with the dark-haired Welsh.
This naturally leads us to the second point of importance--that language
has nothing to do with race. In his book on the _Races of Europe_,
Ripley illustrates this in a very interesting way by a consideration of
the languages and races of the Iberian Peninsula. This peninsula shows
at the present time relative purity of race--not absolute purity, for a
mingling has certainly occurred, but nevertheless one race, that which
we have called Mediterranean, enormously predominates. Yet in spite of
this relative purity of race, the peninsula is divided between two
nationalities and no less than three languages. Portugal forms a
separate nation with its own language, while Spain, though forming one
nation, has two languages, Castilian or Spanish, and Catalan. Catalan is
nearly related to Langue d'oc, the language of Provence across the
French border. Provençal again, before its gradual displacement by the
Langue d'oeil, or true French, was spoken by men of the Mediterranean as
well as of the Alpine race. Within both French and Spanish territory
still another language, Basque, is spoken.
[Illustration: Fig. 13.--The Iberian Peninsula and part of France, to
show the distribution of languages, and their independence of political
boundaries. (After Ripley.)]
In other words, the almost uniform race of the Iberian peninsula speaks
four separate tongues, the Portuguese, Castilian, Catalan, and Basque
languages, and the political boundary of the Pyrenees separates at its
eastern end two groups of Mediterranean man, speaking similar languages,
Catalan or Provençal, the latter of which is also spoken, or was spoken,
in France by the men of another race, the Alpine, found in the uplands
of southern and central France, as well as elsewhere.
Ripley's explanation of the heterogeneity of language combined with
homogeneity of race in Spain and Portugal is interesting. The peninsula
was peopled from Africa before the dawn of history, by a division of
the Mediterranean race called Iberian, which traversed the Strait of
Gibraltar. This race established itself firmly in the peninsula and has
persisted there despite infusions of other races from the north and
north-east. But the road from Africa remained open, and the region was
constantly liable to new invasions from the area of its prime origin.
Differences of culture produced fierce warfare between the incoming and
the old established race, and led temporarily to the triumph of the
invaders, known to history as Saracens and Moors. The original Iberians,
like the people of the same stock in Wales and parts of the Scottish
Highlands, were pushed back to the mountains of Galicia, to the hill
country of Castile, to the hills of Aragon and round and over the
Pyrenees to Languedoc and the south of France generally. Ultimately they
reasserted themselves, and drove the Moors out of Europe, but the
driving force was exerted from three different centres, Galicia,
Castile, and Aragon, which, owing to the configuration of the country,
were isolated from each other. A political accident united Castile and
Aragon, and imposed Castilian Spanish on a united Spain as the official
language, but the geographical conditions have led to the long
retention of the Catalan speech, though not of a Catalan nation. The
Iberians who found a refuge in the mountains of Galicia, at a later
date, formed the nucleus of the Portuguese nation.
With these preliminary considerations we may pass to the discussion of
what is known, or surmised, as to the different races of Europe and
their origin.
The earliest man who has left traces in Europe is he of the Palæolithic
Period, or Old Stone Age, a hunter and cave-dweller without domesticated
animals, whose traces are especially found in southern Europe. No traces
of his presence have yet been found in Scandinavia or in Scotland, where
the climatic conditions perhaps made his existence impossible. Not much
is known of this early race, but it seems to have been long-headed, and
was probably dark. It is no longer believed that there was a complete
rupture between the culture of the Palæolithic period, with its
unpolished stone implements, and that of the Neolithic age, with its
polished implements, but the relations of the two remain somewhat
uncertain. The remains of the Neolithic period are much more extensive
and enable us to draw much more satisfactory conclusions as to racial
characters. We shall describe briefly some of these Neolithic remains as
they appear in Great Britain.
Before doing this, however, it is necessary to say a few words about the
means of recognising different races of men. The criterion most employed
is that of head form, and especially what is known as the cephalic
index, that is, the ratio between the breadth of the skull between the
ears and its length from front to back. The ratio is expressed as a
percentage, the length being taken as 100, and the breadth stated as a
fraction of it. When the index rises above 80, the skull is said to be
brachycephalic, or rounded; when it is below 75, the skull is long, or
dolichocephalic. The Italian anthropologist, Sergi, adopts another
classification of skulls, based upon the shape, but this is only a
refinement of the ordinary distinction between long and round skulls.
Another important character, which, like the shape of the skull, can be
measured either in the living person or in the skeleton, is the height,
which has some racial significance. A third character, of much
importance, is the colouring of the skin, eyes and hair. This can only
be inferred in the case of pre-historic peoples. Finally, the shape of
the features, especially of the nose, has some racial significance.
In the west of Great Britain generally, and extending northwards to
Orkney, there occur the burying-places of a Neolithic people, which have
yielded abundant remains, including skeletons. The cairns, tumuli, or
barrows of this people are recognised by their elongated shape, by the
fact that they are chambered, and by the contained skeletons, which are
always those of a dolichocephalic people. "Long barrows, long skulls" is
an anthropological rule for England and Scotland, no less than for the
other parts of Europe in which these tumuli occur. The skeletons within
the barrows show no marks of fire, so that inhumation not cremation was
practised, and a very curious feature found in Scotland, in Sicily, in
Egypt and elsewhere, in tombs supposed to be of similar age, is that the
body is usually placed in a doubled-up position. The position
corresponds to the pre-natal position of the human infant, and this
method of burial is supposed to imply some belief in a future life--is a
record of a naïve hope that man could "enter a second time into his
mother's womb and be born again."
Graves of this type, containing the skeletons of long-headed men,
believed to be of the race which we have called Mediterranean, occur not
only in western Great Britain, but also in France, in Scandinavia, in
Germany, in the Mediterranean basin, and elsewhere. There seems reason
to believe that they prove that in Neolithic times the Mediterranean
race was widely distributed, especially in the west; it seems, further,
tolerably certain that Mediterranean man himself was an immigrant from
the north of Africa, and established himself first in the Mediterranean
basin.
The members of this race have now, and apparently have always had, the
following characters:--The skull is markedly dolichocephalic, the skin
tends to be brown, the eyes and hair are dark, the stature is medium and
the build slight, and the nose is rather broad.
According to Prof. Sergi there are four great stocks of this race; of
these, one remained within Africa, and has been known under various
names, the ancient Egyptians, the Libyans, the Berbers being all of this
stock. The other three stocks invaded Europe, entering by the three
natural routes which present themselves, that is, by the three regions
where the sea is most easily crossed. The most western group, the
Iberians, crossed, as we have seen, _via_ Gibraltar, and occupied the
Iberian peninsula. The next group, the Ligurians, found an entrance into
Europe _via_ Sicily, and passing up into Italy extended westwards along
the Riviera, till they encountered the Iberians in southern France.
Finally, the third group, the Pelasgians, reached Greece by means of the
islands of that part of the Mediterranean. It still remains uncertain
whether an earlier migration still had peopled Europe with Palæolithic
man, who, on this theory, would belong also to the Mediterranean race,
or whether the immigrant African race displaced some earlier unrelated
population. In any case, it is tolerably certain that the first peopling
of Europe on any considerable scale was the result of this immigration
of Mediterranean man.
He doubtless first established himself on the margin of the great sea,
and there became thoroughly suited to his environment. Later he spread
northwards, being no doubt especially attracted by the relatively mild
climate of the west, by what has been called the "winter gulf of
warmth" which extends over north-western Europe.
Whatever was the cause of his northward trend, however, Mediterranean
man does not appear to have been left long in undisturbed possession of
his acquired territory. In Scotland, in the Clyde valley, which is
typical of many other parts of Europe, round barrows or cairns are found
side by side with the long ones. These are of later origin, as is shown
by the nature of the pottery, by the occurrence of ornaments, and
especially by the presence of bronze weapons--a great advance upon
stone. The skeletons in these cairns mostly show marks of fire,
suggesting that cremation was practised, and the skulls are those of a
round-headed race. "Round barrows mean round skulls" is a second
anthropological maxim for Britain.
These barrows are the first traces of the second great European race,
called Alpine, Celtic, Eurasiatic, or Celto-Slavic by different
anthropologists. The members of this race are of medium height, but are
more stoutly built than Mediterranean man. Though generally resembling
him in the coloration of hair and eyes, they are lighter in tint, the
hair tending to be chestnut-coloured, and the eyes hazel grey, instead
of both being very dark as in the former race. The nose, though
variable, is in living types usually rather broad, and the special
feature is of course the round head and broad face. As one of the names
given indicates, this race is supposed by most anthropologists to have
been of Asiatic origin.
Where the two sets of barrows occur there are indications that the
incoming race greatly influenced the culture of the old. The use of
bronze must have given its members an enormous advantage in the struggle
for existence, and they seem to have imposed their customs, burial and
other, and apparently also their language, on the older race.
This conflict of races which has left its traces in the Clyde valley
apparently occurred in other parts of Europe. Everywhere the new race
imposed its language and its customs upon the old, and everywhere its
appearance is associated with a change and a rise in culture. It is
presumed by the majority that this Alpine race brought with it the use
of bronze, and was therefore at a higher level than Mediterranean man,
but Prof. Sergi believes that the appearance of bronze and of the new
race simultaneously was a mere coincidence, and that the Mediterranean
race itself originated the use of metals. Meantime there is no means of
deciding this question, which in any case is not of supreme importance,
but what seems clear is that everywhere, except in the Mediterranean
basin, the new race pressed the old one hard, whether by its skill in
the arts of peace or in those of war remains uncertain. Even in the
Mediterranean the old languages went down before that of Alpine man.
In the Mediterranean area the new-comers seized the upland regions, that
is, as we have suggested, the regions of pasture, and ousted the
longheads permanently from them. In Spain and Portugal, perhaps because
of the vicinity of the reservoir of the race in North Africa,
Mediterranean man kept his hold, and the brachycephalic forms did not
succeed in obtaining much foothold. But they are strongly represented in
parts of southern France. In southern Italy, in Sicily, Corsica and
Sardinia Mediterranean man largely kept out the intruders, though they
appear again on the Alpine slopes of the north of Italy. But in the
eastern Mediterranean the dark longheads are hard pressed and have kept
little save the seaboard from the broadheads.
Outside the Mediterranean area, the success of Alpine man was more
checkered, but we are met with the difficulty that here a third race
supervened later, so that existing conditions are not necessarily
comparable to earlier conditions.
At the present time Alpine man occupies almost all the upland and
therefore relatively infertile regions of France, especially Savoy and
the Dauphiny, the central uplands, and parts (not the whole) of
Brittany. Outliers of this race also occur in other regions, _e. g._ in
parts of the Saône valley, which is not infertile. In Great Britain,
despite their first success, the broadlands have left little trace on
the existing population. We thus see the absurdity of talking about
British Celts, for Celts in the true sense are almost extinct in Britain
though their language remains and is spoken by types of Mediterranean
man as well as by others. In Scandinavia Alpine man was more successful,
for he has left traces in various parts, especially on the coast of
Norway. Throughout Belgium and in Southern Germany the broad-headed
element in the population is very strong, while in Austria, the Balkan
States and Russia this race predominates and is no longer confined to
elevated or infertile regions. This increase in numbers and in dominance
towards the east is one of the facts which lead anthropologists to
believe that Alpine man is of Asiatic origin.
We shall return to him in a moment, but meantime it is necessary to
speak of the third element in Europe, the race variously called Nordic,
Teutonic, or even Germanic, in spite of the fact that many Germans
belong to the Alpine race. The members of this race are remarkable for
their tall stature, for their long skulls and face, for their blue eyes
and fair hair, their light complexions, and their narrow aquiline noses.
The resemblance in skull form leads many anthropologists to regard them
as derived from a common stock with the Mediterranean race, but the race
seems to have originated in Europe. The place and date of its origin are
still quite uncertain. It is possible that it was produced from an early
form of the Mediterranean race in adaptation to the moist climate of
western Europe. Ripley gives Scandinavia as the probable place of
origin, but meantime there can be no certainty.
What we do know is that this race shows as perfect an adaptation to the
climate of forest-clad temperate Europe as Mediterranean man does to
the dry climate of that region. Just as the border of the Mediterranean
is the province of Mediterranean man, and has been his for countless
ages, so north-western Europe is the almost unchallenged possession of
Nordic man. Between the two, along the great wedge of uplands, is the
land of Alpine man, which widens to the east, his original home. Just as
Mediterranean man in the days of his prime pushed north wherever
conditions permitted, so Nordic man has pushed south, across the Alpine
barrier, both in the literal and anthropological sense, and has left
traces of his coming even within the territory of Mediterranean man.
Just as the dark-haired Welsh and the dark-haired strain of Scottish
Highlanders bear witness to the old exploits of Mediterranean man, so do
the fair-haired, tall-statured Lombards bear witness to the former
activity of Nordic man. Nevertheless, the main territory of the two
races is widely separated.
The relation of these two types, at least, to their zones of
distribution is relatively easy to explain. Mediterranean man is highly
susceptible to diseases of the breathing-organs to which the fair-haired
Nordic type is more resistant. Here is one possible explanation of
their command of their respective habitats, and there are many others.
The forest-dwelling Nordic type, as Prof. Penck points out, must
necessarily have had the family as the unit, for only by dwelling in
small family groups can primitive man war against the forest.
Mediterranean man, with his early use of irrigation, had necessarily to
evolve a larger unit, for irrigation means extensive co-operation, so
that political organisations would arise early in the Mediterranean. We
can hardly doubt that these two facts had some bearing on the survival
rate of the two races. The Nordic race with their strong family life,
and with their abundant pasturage, had doubtless a relatively low
death-rate among the children, though, as Prof. Myres points out, the
struggle in adult life must have been keen. In the Mediterranean, as he
also notes, the dry summer means difficulties with the water supply,
difficulties in sanitation, and the risk of pestilence, which, with the
abundant supply of fruit and the absence or scarcity of milk, has
probably always meant a very high death-rate among the children. But the
fact that the struggle for existence among adults was much less keen
than among the forest folk, perhaps prevented this high infantile
death-rate from being a great handicap. Once the geographical
surroundings of the two peoples were changed by migration, the qualities
which aided them to survive in their native habitat might become a
positive hindrance. In brief, as two types evolved in harmony with
well-defined geographical conditions, the very perfectness of their
respective adaptations would hinder either from appropriating the
territory of the other, while leaving a considerable margin for struggle
on the debatable land between the two geographical regions.
If it seems at the present day that the Nordic race has more than passed
the Mediterranean in the race of life, we must remember that the fact
that coal is chiefly found in the territory of the former, has given it
an enormous economic advantage in recent times, an advantage which it
may not be able to keep.
The Alpine race presents a much more difficult problem. We have said
nothing here of the so-called Aryan problem, because the whole
conception of an Aryan race advancing from Asia with a ready-made
culture, and imposing it upon a barbarian Europe, is somewhat out of
date, and much that has been written on the subject of the Aryans
preceded in time the disentanglement of the complex problems presented
by European races. But with all deductions made, the incoming Asiatic
race which we have called Alpine presents many curious problems. It
seems probable that the languages of Europe are largely due to the
grafting of Alpine or Eurasian tongues upon the different tongues
already spoken by Mediterranean man. We have still in Britain a Celtic
language, though it is spoken by people of Mediterranean characters, and
it is an extraordinary fact that a people should impose its language and
culture upon another race, and yet be itself unable to keep its footing
among that race.
It has been suggested that the new-comers, in Britain at least, were
never more than an aristocracy, and that they disappeared by the
mingling of their blood with the indigenous people, after having long
dominated them. That is, it was as if we might suppose that the British
population in India was cut off from the mother country, and ultimately
disappeared owing to intermarriage, while their language and their
customs remained in greatly modified form and replaced the existing
languages and customs.
The difficulties in regard to this hypothesis are twofold. In the first
place, such a hypothesis of mingling seems inconsistent with the
extraordinary persistency which this race has manifested in other parts
of Europe, where it came into contact with the same races as in Britain;
and, second, the position of the Alpine race in western Europe
generally, its virtual limitation to relatively infertile land, seems
inconsistent with the notion that it ever formed an aristocracy, apart
from and above the other races. To-day in Germany it is so far from
occupying the position of an aristocracy that it sometimes forms the
lower classes to a Nordic dominant class, though the Alpine race is
sometimes stated to be better adapted to town life than the Nordic.
Of the three races, Mediterranean man seems to be perfectly adapted to a
dry region, with deficient pasture, naturally clothed with a
drought-resisting type of forest. As he prospered he spread beyond his
own region, with the result that he reached a region markedly different
in climate and vegetation from his own, to which his adaptation was
never very perfect. Where, as in Ireland and western Great Britain, the
conditions permitted the natural growth of some of the Mediterranean
plants, there his hold was fairly firm, elsewhere it must always have
been loose and uncertain.
Into a Europe thus peopled, with probably large vacant spaces, came a
pastoral type of man from Asia, certainly a transporter, if not an
originator, of a higher culture, best fitted for a region of pasture
land, but better fitted than Mediterranean man to withstand cold. He
filled the spaces which Mediterranean man could not fill, and pressed
him hard in many places. Ultimately the forest region of Europe evolved
its own type, perhaps from some aberrant strain of Mediterranean man,
and this type, perfectly fitted to the forest regions, conquered the
north and west, driving Alpine man up to the hills, and largely
displacing Mediterranean man except where distinctively Mediterranean
influences prevailed.
To the east, as the European forest dies away into the steppes of Asia,
Nordic man can no longer compete successfully with Alpine man, and
diminishes in numbers and in strength.
Thus while in Germany the tendency is for the tall, fair longheads of
the north to dominate the short, darker broadheads of the south, further
to the east this same broad-headed race, under the banner of Panslavism,
strives, not unsuccessfully, to dominate the longheads of Finland and
elsewhere.
Thus below and beneath the warfare of race is the contrast of physical
conditions, which have produced the various types of man, no less than
of plants and animals, and from which man cannot fully emancipate
himself.
The New World was first colonised by Mediterranean man, but later all
the European races contributed their part to its peopling. When we add a
strong negro element in the southern United States, a remnant of the
original Indian population, and an infusion of eastern races, it is
obvious that the mingling of blood which has apparently produced good
results in Europe, is being carried out on a much more elaborate scale
across the Atlantic.
One other point may be touched upon. We have shown that the nations of
Europe are not races in the pure sense. But, at the same time, it may be
noted that in the western nations one or other of the two chief races
tends to predominate at the expense of the other.
Thus broadly we may say that the antagonism between the French and
German nationalities is fed by the fact that in race, in culture, in
tradition, the one is predominantly Mediterranean, and the other
predominantly Teutonic. In the Iberian peninsula, as we have seen, the
Mediterranean strain enormously predominates, while in the countries of
the north-west the Teutonic race tends to overbalance the other.