CHAP. XIV.] THE CAUCASIC PEOPLES. 5 1 I. 



the new era is of such momentous import in determining the 

 ethnical relations of the historical, i.e. the present European 

 populations. Whether we call them Achaeans or Hellenes, 

 Umbrians or Itali, Sarmatians or Slavs, Teutons or Germans, 

 Gauls, Britons or Kelts, Basques or Spaniards, all may now, 

 roughly speaking, be regarded as originally North African Hamites, 

 both of the long-headed and round-headed types, indigenous from 

 remote times in that region. Europe would appear to have been 

 reached by two routes, first in the Stone Ages, across the Mediter- 

 ranean at several points, then round by Asia Minor and the 

 Eurasian steppe, mainly in the early Metal Age, or in the period 

 intermediate between the Neolithic and the Bronze Age, the 

 ^neolithic period of Italian archaeologists. Both routes were 

 followed by both types, the rather short, dark long-heads, i.e. the 

 "Mediterraneans" of Ripley and Sergi, becoming specialised 

 along the northern shores of the Mediterranean, in West Europe, 

 and the British Isles as Pelasgians, Ligurians, Iberians, Picts or 

 Silurians, while the dark or brown round-heads of medium height, 

 the " Alpines " of Ripley and de Lapouge were massed in the 

 central uplands (Auvergne, Savoy, Switzerland, Tyrol). 



It is doubtful whether the Mediterraneans spread in large 

 numbers to North Europe (the North German lowlands and 

 Scandinavia), which region would seem to have been for the 

 most part occupied in Neolithic times by the tall blond long- 

 heads, Ripley's Teutons, and the Homo Europceus of Linne 

 and de Lapouge who came from the Eurasian steppe. Then 

 perhaps a little later the "Alpines" may have been reinforced 

 by other roundheads from the Iranian and Armenian uplands, 

 who at the same time spread over the East European plains. 



Such prehistoric migrations would at least explain several 

 striking facts in the constitution of the European peoples, as for 

 instance, the absence everywhere of a clearly defined Mongol 

 type, except such as can be traced to quite late Mongol intruders ; 

 the astonishing diffusion of the Alpine roundheads over the 

 eastern plains, that is, over well-nigh half of Europe, so that one 

 asks why this type should be called "Alpine," when it covers 

 nearly 2,000,000 square miles of lowlands ; the perhaps still 

 more remarkable exclusion of the same Alpines or of any round- 



