XIV.] THE CAUCASIC PEOPLES. 551 



European type 1 . To this stock the proto-Slavs are affiliated by 

 Zaborowski and many others 2 , although the present Slavs are all 

 distinctly round-headed. Ripley asks, almost in despair, what is 

 to be done with the present Slav element, and decides to apply 

 " the term Homo Alpinus to this broad-headed group wherever it 

 occurs, whether on mountains or plains, in the west or in the 



east 3 .' 



We are beset by the same difficulties as we pass with the 

 Ossets of the Caucasus into the Iranian and Indian 



The Ossets. 



domains of the proto-Aryan peoples. These Ossets, 

 who are the only aborigines of Aryan speech in Caucasia, are by 

 Zaborowski 4 identified with the Alans, who are already mentioned 

 in the ist century A.D. and were Scythians of Iranian speech, 

 blonds, mixed with Medes, and perhaps descendants of the Massa- 

 getae. We know from history that the Goths and Alans became 

 closely united, and it may be from the Goths that the Osset 

 descendants of the Alans (some still call themselves Alans) 

 learned to brew beer. Elsewhere 3 Zaborowski represents the 

 Ossets as of European origin, till lately for the most part blonds, 

 though now showing many Scythian traits. But they are not 

 physically Iranians " despite the Iranian and Asiatic origin of 

 their language," as shown by Max Kowalewsky 6 . On the whole, 

 therefore, the Ossets may be taken as originally blond Europeans, 

 closely blended with Scythians, and later with the other modern 

 Caucasus peoples, who are mostly brown brachys. But Ernest 

 Chantre 7 allies these groups to their brown and brachy Tatar 



1 Hence Virchow (Meeting Ger. Anthrop. Soc. 1897) declared that the 

 extent and duration of the Slav encroachments in German territory could not 

 be determined by the old skulls, because it is impossible to say whether a given 

 skull is Slav or not. 



2 Especially Lubor Niederle, for whom the proto-Slavs are unquestionably 

 long-headed blonds like the Teutons, although he admits that round skulls 

 occur even of old date, and practically gives up the attempt to account for the 

 transition to the modern Slav. Have we here a physiological phenomenon on 

 a very large scale, such as that indicated by Prof. Macalister? 



3 The Racial Geography of Europe, in Popular Science Monthly, June, 1897. 



4 Bui. Soc. (f Anthrop. 1896, p. 81 sq. 



5 Bui. Soc. d' Anthrop. 1894, p. 36. 



6 Droit Coutumier Ossethien, 1893. 



7 Quoted by Ujfalvy, Les Aryens etc. p. n. 



