vi TIIE ARYAN QUESTION. 317 



out the Recent period: that only the former two 

 at first inhabited our islands; but that a mixed 

 race of tall broad-heads, like some of the Black- 

 foresters of the present day, so excellently de- 

 scribed by Ecker, migrated from the continent and 

 formed that tall contingent of the population 

 which has been identified (rightly or wrongly) 

 with the Belgas by Thurnam and which seems to 

 have subsequently lost itself among the predomi- 

 nant brunet and blond long-heads. 



I do not think there is anything to warrant 

 the conclusion that the palaBO-metallic culture of 

 Europe took its origin among the 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 followed by the stage 

 which appertains to the Gauls, with their long 

 swords and other characteristic iron work. In 

 western Switzerland, 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 in- 

 fluence (though not of dominion) are to be found. 

 Helbig supposes the terramare people to have been 



