7^ 



1895.] • " [Brinton. 



the Aimak, between Herat and Cabul, and a few others, drifted 

 there in the mighty inundation of Ghenghis Khan in the four- 

 teenth century of our era.* 



According to their own traditions, and the concurrent testi- 

 mony of the oldest Chinese annals, the present Khanates of 

 Khiva, Bokhara and Khokan, as well as eastern Turkistan, were 

 inhabited in the most ancient time by an Aryan population, 

 which was conquered or expelled by the Mongol-Tartar race 

 within the historic period. f 



This is substantiated by the most recent researches with ref- 

 erence to the ethnic position of the ancient Asian Scythians who 

 are located in that vicinit^^ by the Greek geographers. They 

 are shown to have been members of the Indo-European family. | 



It is even very doubtful that in the remote Avestan period of 

 the history of eastern Iran the Aryans had to contend with 

 Altaic or Mongolic hordes ; for their enemies are represented as 

 using war chariots, which were unknown to the Tartar horse- 

 men.! The so-called non-Aryans (anarya) probably were merely 

 other tribes of Indo-European origin, of different culture and 

 religion. II The peculiar arrow release of the Mongolians and 

 their characteristic bows are not depicted on the oldest monu- 

 ments, nor were they familiar to the early western tribes of 

 Asia.^ 



Phj'sically the protohistoric peoples of western Asia nowhere 

 display clear traits of the well-marked t3'pe of the Sibiric stock. 

 Judged either by the portraitures on the monuments or by the 

 cranial remains in the oldest cemeteries, they were meso- or 

 dolicho-cephalic, with straight eyes, oval or narrow faces, distinct 

 nasal bridges, etc. 



A persistent effort was made a few years ago by the Rev. C. 

 J. Ball to prove that the language and blood of the southern 



* H. Rchurtz, Calechismas der Volkerkunde, p. 292. 



t W. Geiger, Civilization of the Eastern Iranians in Ancient Times, p. 18 ; Gregorjew, Bulle- 

 tin of the Oriental Congress at St. Petersburg, 1876, p. 38. 



X Berlin in Jour, of the Anthrop. Inst., 1888, p. 109 ; Hovelacque, La Linguistique, p. 190, 

 and others. 



§ W. Geiger, u. s., who inclines, however, to a pre-Aryan hypotliesis. 



II Geiger points this out clearly, and it is surprising that Schrader and Jevons {Prehis- 

 toric Anuquities of the Aryan People, London, 1890) fail to note that arya in the Avesta is a 

 religious, not an ethnic, distinction. 



% See Prof. E. S. Morse's suggestive study on arrow releases as an ethnic trait in Essex 

 Institute Bulletin, 1885. 



