VIII.] THE NORTHERN MONGOLS. 283 



Here the typical Mongols, cut oft" from the arable lands of South 

 Siberia by the Tian-shan and Altai ranges, and to some extent 

 denied access to the rich fluvial valleys of the Middle Kingdom 

 by the barrier of the Great Wall, have for ages led a pastoral life 

 in the inhabitable tracts and oases of the Gobi wilderness and 

 the Ordos region within the great bend of the Hoang-ho. During 

 the historic period these natural and artificial ramparts have been 

 several times surmounted by fierce Mongol hordes, pouring like 

 irresistible flood-waters over the whole of China and many parts 

 of Siberia, and extending their predatory or conquering expedi- 

 tions across the more open northern plains westwards nearly to 

 the shores of the Atlantic. But such devastating torrents, which 

 at intervals convulsed and caused dislocations amongst half the 

 settled populations of the globe, had little effect on the tribal 

 groups that remained behind. These continued and continue to 

 occupy the original camping-grounds, as changeless and uniform 

 in their physical appearance, mental characters, and social usages 

 as the Arab bedouins and all other inhabitants of monotonous 

 undiversified steppe lands. 



De Ujfalvy's suggestion that the typical Mongols of the plains, 

 with whom we are now dealing, were originally a 

 long-headed race, can scarcely be taken seriously. 

 At present and, in fact, throughout historic times, 

 all true Mongol peoples are and have been distinguished by 

 a high degree of brachycephaly, with cephalic index generally 

 from 87 upwards, and it may be remembered that the highest 

 known index of any undeformed skull was that of Huxley's 

 Mongol (98-21). But, as already noticed, those recovered from 

 prehistoric, or neolithic kurgans, are found to be dolichocephalous 

 like those of palaeolithic and early neolithic man in Europe. 



Taken in connection with the numerous prehistoric remains 

 above recorded from all parts of Central Asia and Siberia, this 

 fact may perhaps help to bring de Ujfalvy's view into harmony 

 with the actual conditions. Everything will be explained by 

 assuming that the proto-Mongolic tribes, spreading from the 

 Tibetan plateau over the plains now bearing their name, found 

 that region already occupied by the long-headed Caucasic peoples 

 of the Stone Ages, whom they either exterminated or drove north 



