XIJ.] THE CAUCASIC PEOPLES. 467 



brownest eyes and hair, the longest heads, the swarthiest com- 

 plexion 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 1 ." 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. Xiceforo 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. ii in. Niceforo agrees with Sergi in bringing this dwarfish 

 race also from North Africa 2 . 



Despite greater cranial variability", 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. Comcidently 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 4 ." 



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 5 . In this way he would explain the rising percentage of 



1 p. 182. - Atti Soc. Rom. cC Antrop. 1896, pp. 179 and 201. 



3 Range of cephalic index of four Corsican heads studied by Ripley 72'3 to 

 80*8 (Racial Geography of Europe}. 4 Ib. 



5 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 



302 



