334 MAN : PAST AND PRESENT. [CHAP. 



ascended the great river to Lakes Ladoga and Onega, and thence 



to the shores of the Baltic and Lapland (Baltic and Lake Finns). 



Thus were constituted the main branches of the wide-spread 



Finnish family, whose domain formerly extended 



Former and from the Khatanga beyond the Yenisei to Lapland, 



Present 



Domain. and from the Arctic Ocean to the Altai range, the 



Caspian, and the Volga, with considerable enclaves 

 in the Danube basin. But throughout their relatively short his- 

 toric life the Finnish peoples, despite a characteristic tenacity and 

 power of resistance, have in many places been encroached upon, 

 absorbed, or even entirely eliminated, by more aggressive races, 

 such as the Siberian "Tatars" in their Altai cradleland, the Turki 

 Kirghiz and Bashkirs in the West Siberian steppes and the Urals, 

 the Russians in the Volga and Lake districts, the Germans and 

 Lithuanians in the Baltic Provinces (Kurland, Livonia, Esthonia), 

 the Rumanians, Slavs, and others in the Danube regions, where 

 the Ugrian Bulgars and Magyars have been almost entirely assimi- 

 lated in type (and the former also in speech) to the surrounding 

 European populations. 



Few anthropologists now attach much importance to the views 

 not yet quite obsolete regarding a former extension 



Late West- 

 ward Spread of of the Finnish race over the whole of Europe and 



the British Isles. Despite the fact that all the 

 Finns are essentially round-headed, they were identified first with 

 the long-headed cavemen, who retreated north with the reindeer, 

 as was the favourite hypothesis, and then with the early neolithic 

 races who were also long-headed. Elaborate but now forgotten 

 essays were written by learned philologists to establish a common 

 origin of the Basque and the Finnic tongues, which have nothing 

 in common, and half the myths, folklore, and legendary heroes of 

 the western nations were traced to Finno-Ugrian sources. 



Now we know better, and both archaeologists and philologists 

 have made it evident that the Finnish peoples are relatively 

 quite recent arrivals in Europe, that the men of the Bronze Age 

 in Finland itself were not Finns but Teutons, and that at the 

 beginning of the new era all the Finnish tribes still dwelt east 

 of the Gulf of Finland 1 . 



See A. Hackmann, Die Bronzezeit Finnlands, Helsingfors, 1897 ; also 



