CHAP. XIII.] THE CAUCASIC PEOPLES. 491 



populations may have moved either westwards into Africa, or, as 

 would seem more probable, eastwards into Asia, where in the 

 course of ages the Semitic type became specialised. 



On this assumption South Arabia would necessarily be the 

 first home of the Semites, who in later times spread thence 

 north and east, and became further specialised as 



r-,/ i- Divisions. 



Phoenicians on the east coast of Arabia and the 

 neighbouring Bahrein Islands ; as Assyrians in Mesopotamia ; 

 as Arabs on the Nejd steppe ; as Canaanites^ Moabites and 

 others in and about Palestine ; as Amorites (Aramceans, Syrians], 

 possibly even Hittites, in Syria and Asia Minor. 



Against this broad view of Semitic origins and early migrations 

 there appear to be no serious objections of any kind, while the 

 hypothesis would seem to harmonise well with all the known 

 conditions. In the first place is to be considered the very narrow 

 area occupied by the Semites, both absolutely and relatively to 

 the domains of the other fundamental ethnical groups. While 

 the Mongols are found in possession of the greater part of Asia, 

 and the Hamites with the Mediterraneans are diffused over the 

 whole of north Africa, south and west Europe since the Stone 

 Ages, the Semites, excluding later expansions Himyarites to 

 Abyssinia, Phoenicians to the shores of the Mediterranean, 

 Moslem Arabs to Africa, Irania, and Transoxiana have always 

 been confined to the south-west corner of Asia, comprising very 

 little more than the Arabian Peninsula, Mesopotamia, Syria, and 

 (doubtfully) parts of Asia Minor. From this may be drawn two 

 important inferences first that, as suggested, the early Hamito- 

 Semitic migrations were not from east to west, but from the larger 

 African to the singularly contracted Asiatic area, and secondly that 

 these migrations were comparatively late, not earlier at all events 

 than the Neolithic period. At that time Asia was already well 

 peopled, so that the proto-Semites could extend their range only 

 as conquerors, and as such the Assyrians seem to make their 

 appearance amongst the Akkado-Sumerians of Mesopotamia, 

 advancing, not from the north (the Kurdistan uplands), but from 

 the south (Persian Gulf), as is now generally believed by the best 

 authorities 1 . 



1 Seep. 275. 



