THE ARYAN QUESTION AND PREHISTORIC MAN. 511 



blond long-head (or supposed Aryan) race ; or that the people of 

 the Swiss pile-dwellings belonged to that race. The long-heads 

 among them may just as likely have been brunets. In north- 

 eastern Italy there is clear evidence of the superposition of at 

 least four stages of culture, in which that of the copper and 

 bronze using terramare people comes second ; a stage marked by 

 Etruscan domination occupies the third place; and that is fol- 

 lowed by the stage which appertains to the Gauls, with their long 

 swords and other characteristic iron-work. In western Switzer- 

 land, on the other hand, at La Tene, and elsewhere, similar relics 

 show that the Gauls followed upon the latest population of the 

 pile-dwellings among whom traces of Etruscan influence (though 

 not of dominion) are to be found. Helbig supposes the terramare 

 people to have been Greco-Latin-speaking Pelasgi, and conse- 

 quently Aryan. But we can not suppose the people of the pile- 

 dwellings of Switzerland to have been speakers of primitive 

 Greco-Latin (if ever there was such a language). And if the 

 Gauls were the first speakers of Celtic who got into Switzerland, 

 what Aryan language can the people of the pile-dwellings have 

 spoken ? * 



As I have already mentioned, there is not the least doubt that 

 man existed in northwestern Europe during the Pleistocene or 

 Quaternary epoch. It is not only certain that men were contem- 

 poraries of the mammoth, the hairy rhinoceros, the reindeer, the 

 cave bear, and other great carnivora, in England and in France, 

 but a great deal has been ascertained about the modes of life of 

 our predecessors. They were savage hunters, who took advan- 

 tage of such natural shelters as overhanging rocks and caves, 

 and perhaps built themselves rough wigwams ; but who had no 

 domestic animals, and have left no sign that they cultivated 

 plants. In many localities there is evidence that a very consider- 

 able interval the so-called hiatus intervened between the time 

 when the Quaternary or palaeolithic men occupied particular 

 caves and river basins and the accumulation of the debris left by 

 their neolithic successors. And, in spite of all the warnings 

 against negative evidence afforded by the history of geology, 

 some have very positively asserted that this means a complete 

 break between the Quaternary and the Recent populations that 

 the Quaternary population followed the retreating ice northward 

 and left behind them a desert which remained unpeopled for ages. 

 Other high authorities, on the contrary, maintain that the races 

 of men who now inhabit Europe may all be traced back to the 



* See Dr. Munro's excellent work, The Lake Dwellings of Europe, for La T6ne. 

 Readers of Prof. Rhys's recent articles (Scottish Review, 1890) may suggest that the pile- 

 dwelling people spoke the Gaedhelic form of Celtic, and the Gauls the Brythonic form. 



