5 1 2 MAN : PAST AND PRESENT. [CHAP. 



heads from the British Islands till the Bronze Age, here certainly 

 recent, say, about 1500 B.C. at the earliest; the strange distribution 

 of the dolicho and brachy types in Italy and the islands, where 

 the positions seem to be reversed ; and lastly the presence of long- 

 heads in Greece in Mykena^an, i.e. Pelasgic or pre-Hellenic times, 

 the common assumption being that this element came in with 

 the long-headed Hellenes of Aryan speech. But if long-headed 

 Mediterraneans be once admitted as the substratum in the above 

 specified lands, all will be simplified. 



The general character of the Aryan migrations has already 

 been considered. But it may here be pointed out 



The " Proto- 



Aryans" of that the Aryans, as a distinct race, were perhaps at 



two types. O-L'II f ^i 



no time very numerous. Still, few or many, in their 

 cradle, which was presumably the Eurasian steppe, and before the 

 dispersions, they must have been a more or less homogeneous race 

 with definite physical characters. They could not, for instance, 

 have been both round and long-headed, fair and dark, tall and 

 short, but, let us say, tall, fair long-heads, as all things considered 

 seems the more probable view. How then does it happen that 

 from the first, that is, on their very first appearance in Europe, 

 peoples of Aryan speech present both types, as is clearly seen, for 

 instance, in the round-headed Kelts and the long-headed Teutons? 

 Sergi solves the problem by assuming that the tribes of Aryan 

 speech entering Europe from Asia in the Bronze period were 

 all round-headed, and moreover rude barbarians who brought 

 nothing with them, except bronze, and their language. This they 

 imposed on the Mediterraneans, or rather grafted on the speech 

 of the Ligurians in Italy, and of the Pelasgians in Greece, which 

 must have been of Hamitic type : " The language of the Aryans 

 transformed, but did not destroy those spoken in Greece and 

 Italy 1 ." There may be more truth in this than appears on the 

 surface, although the case is put in a way that can never be 

 accepted by philologists. To me it appears rather that the Aryan 

 tongues everywhere, so to say, took possession of 



Linguistic 



Relations in the soil, and effaced those previously current, but 

 Italy" in so doing became themselves somewhat modified, 



especially in their vocabulary and phonetics. Even 

 ] Arii e Italici, p. 176. 



