312 THE ARYAN QUESTION. vi 



led the Eussians to the rediscovery of the forgotten 

 stores of wealth. The race to which the Tschudes 

 belonged and the age of the works which testify 

 to their former existence, are alike unknown. But 

 seeing that a rumour of them appears to have 

 reached Herodotus, while, on the other hand, the 

 pile-dwelling civilisation of Switzerland may per- 

 haps come down as late as the fifth century b. c, 

 the possibility that a knowledge of the technical 

 value of copper may have travelled from Siberia 

 westward must not be overlooked. If the idea of 

 turning metals to account must needs be Asiatic, 

 it may be north Asiatic just as well as south 

 Asiatic. In the total absence of trustworthy 

 chronological and anthropological data, speculation 

 may run wild. 



The oldest civilisations for which we have an, 

 even approximately, accurate chronology are those 

 of the valleys of the Nile and of the Euphrates. 

 Here, culture seems to have attained a degree of per- 

 fection, at least as high as that of the bronze stage, 

 six thousand years ago. But before the inter- 

 mediation of Etruscan, Phoenician, and Greek trad- 

 ers, there is no evidence that they exerted any 

 serious influence upon Europe or northern Asia. 

 As to the old civilisation of Mesopotamia, what is 

 to be said until something definite is known about 

 the racial characters of its originators, the Acca- 

 dians? As matters stand, they are just as likely 

 to have been a group of the same race as the Egyp- 



