PREHISTORIC MAN. 297 



types which have been described already. It is true that 

 even as early as the "Second City" at Hissarlik, one of 

 the skulls found by Dr. Schliemann presented close re- 

 semblances to the Thracian type of Central Europe ; but 

 it may be taken as very probable that this and the rare 

 parallel instances only represent the first beginnings of 

 a progressive infiltration of northern brachycephalic races 

 from beyond the mountain barrier, which has succeeded 

 in modifying slightly the modern Greek type by an in- 

 crease for example of the cephalic index from about 75 

 to 77 ; but, as in the case of the Lombards and Cormans 

 in Italy, has hardly affected the characteristic outward type 

 of complexion, eyes and hair. 



91. East of the iEgean, the evidence for the earlier 

 elements of the population is even more fragmentary, and 

 at the same time the disturbances which have resulted from 

 the Mongolian inroads of the Middle Ages are more marked. 

 But the observations of Von Luschan and Benndorf have 

 demonstrated a general correspondence with the same 

 Mediterranean type ; and an increasing series of skulls from 

 Cyprus confirm that conclusion. 



92. At this corner of the Levant however the whole 

 question is complicated by the proximity and very early 

 intrusion of races from the Syrian coast land, of the well- 

 marked type whose distribution seems closely to correspond 

 with the primary area of Semitic speech. This type how- 

 ever, as Prof. Flinders Petrie's recent observations show, is 

 itself so closely allied to the Hamitic types of North Africa 

 as to be difficult to distinguish from it in contiguous areas, 

 and presents a number of intermediate forms which are pro- 

 bably actually half-caste. 



93. Thus a survey of the whole of the Mediterranean 

 coast-land leads to the conclusion that its earliest recognis- 

 able inhabitants and their descendants, who form the great 

 mass of the present population, belong to a single closely 

 connected group of races ; that their earlier home is to be 

 looked for in the formerly fertile interior of North Africa, 

 and not improbably, as Dr. Sergi has indicated, in or near 

 the upper valley of the Nile ; and that the peninsular of 



