METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY. 239 



possessed a fragment of written history at the time 

 it came into contact with European civilization. 

 The other four — the Negroes, Mongolians, 

 Xanthochroi, and Melanochroi — have always ex- 

 isted in some of the localities in which they are now 

 found, nor do the negroes ever seem to have volun- 

 tarily travelled beyond the limits of their present 

 area. But ancient history is in a great measure 

 the record of the mutual encroachments of the 

 other three stocks. 



On the whole, however, it is wonderful how 

 little change has been effected by these mutual 

 invasions and intermixtures. As at the present 

 time, so at the dawn of history, the Melanochroi 

 fringed the Atlantic and the Mediterranean; the 

 Xanthochroi occupied most of Central and 

 Eastern Europe, and much of Western and Cen- 

 tral Asia; while Mongolians held the extreme 

 east of the Old World. So far as history teaches 

 us, the populations of Europe, Asia and Africa 

 were, twenty * centuries ago, just what they 

 are now, in their broad features and general dis- 

 tribution. 



The evidence yielded by Archeology is not 

 very definite, but so far as it goes, it is to much 

 the same effect. The mound builders of Central 

 America seem to have had the characteristic short 

 and broad head of the modern inhabitants of that 

 continent. The tumuli and tombs of Ancient 



[* We may now safely say thirty or forty. — 1894.] 



