XII.] THE CAUCASIC PEOPLES. 453 



Of course it is open to anyone to say with M. de Mortillet 

 that the men of the later Palaeolithic period re- 



Precursors of 



presented in France by the Laugerie race, whose the European 



, , , , , . Aborigines. 



remains occur in the Madeleman deposits at 

 Laugerie-Basse and at Chancellade, both in Dordogne, were de- 

 veloped in situ from the older race, and were not a foreign 

 invading type 1 . But even so Mauritania would remain the qfficlna 

 gentium for the first arrivals in Europe, where they were thus 

 afterwards specialised into men of the normal European (Cau- 

 casic) type. But no such specialisation on the spot was needed, 

 for it was continually going on in North Africa, whence the stream 

 of migration set steadily and uninterruptedly into Europe through- 

 out both Stone Ages. 



This doctrine of the specialisation of the fundamental European 

 types in Africa, before their migrations northwards, lies at the base 

 of Prof. Sergi's views regarding the African origin of those types. 

 Arguing against the Asiatic origin of the Hamites, as held by 

 Prichard, Virchow, Sayce and others, he points out that this race, 

 scarcely if at all represented in Asia, has an immense range in 

 Africa, where its several sub-varieties must have been evolved 

 before their dispersion over a great part of that continent and 

 of Europe. Then, regarding Hamites and Semites as essentially 

 one, he concludes that Africa is the cradle whence this primitive 

 stock "spread northwards to Europe, where it still persists, espe- 

 cially in the Mediterranean and its three principal peninsulas, and 

 eastwards to West Asia 2 ." 



Here is proclaimed in unqualified language the essential unity 

 of the three main divisions of the Caucasic family, and the North- 

 African origin of the European branch. The evidence, anatomical, 

 archaeological, and linguistic, in support of this conclusion is rapidly 

 accumulating, and daily making converts even amongst some of 

 those anthropologists who are strongly opposed to Sergi's generali- 



in reference to the continuity of human culture in Tunisia throughout the Old 

 and New Stone Ages, that "ces populations fortement melangees d'elements 

 neanderthaloides de la Kromirie fabriquent encore des vases de tous points 

 analogues a la poterie neolithique" (ib.}. 



1 Formation de la A T ation Francaise, 1897. 



- Africa, Antropologia della Stirpe Ca/nitica, Turin, 1897, p. 404 sq. 



