580 MIGRATIONS OF RACES OF MEN CONSIDERED HISTORICALLY. 



Alaska to Tieria del Fuego. That the process of settling- these vast 

 areas must have taken an enormous space of time is i^roved, not only 

 by the archaeological evidence drawn from human bones and other relics 

 of primitive man, but also by the great differences, both physical and 

 linguistic, between the various American races — dift'erences, however, 

 whicli are nowise iucomi)atible with the doctrine of a common Asiatic 

 origin. 



The first migrations of which we have distinct historical evidence, 

 besides those of the Phenicians and Israelites, are the movement of 

 the Dorians into Peloponnesus and of the ^^^olians and louians to the 

 west coast of Asia Minor. Somewhat later, in the seventh century, 

 B. c, collisions seemed to have occurred among the nomad tribes to the 

 north of the Black and Caspian seas, which led to the irruption of a 

 people called Cimmerians, who advanced as far as Ephesus, and part 

 of whom seem to have i)eruuinently settled on the south coast of the 

 Euxine, and of a host of Scythians who ravaged Western Asia for 

 many years, and were bought off by Kiug Psammetichus on the fron- 

 tiers of Egypt. Whether any permanent settlements followed these 

 irruptions does not appear, but they are interesting as the first of the 

 many instances in which the roving people of the steppe have descended 

 on the settled States to the south, carrying slaughter and rapine in 

 their train. 



Passing over such minor disturbances of i)opulation as the Celtic 

 occupation of North Italy and of that part of Asia Minor which from 

 them took the name of (ralatia, and i)assing over also the premature 

 descent of the Cimbri and the Teutones into the Poman world in the days 

 of Marius, who slaughtered them at Aix (in Provence) and Vercelli, Ave 

 arrive at the third great epoch of movement — that which the Germans 

 call ])ar excellence the wandering of the peoples (VOlkerwanderung). 

 The usual account describes this movement to have begun from the 

 nomads of Mongolia, living near the Great Wall of China, one trii)e 

 aggressing on or pro])elling another, until those who dwelt westward 

 near the Caspian precipitated themselves on the (Joths, then occui)y- 

 ing the plains of the Dnieper and Dniester, and drove them across the 

 Danube into the Roman Empire. Whether this was the originating 

 cause, or whether it is rather to be sought in a lack of food and the 

 natural increase of the tribes between the Baltic and the Euxine, there 

 certainly did begin with the crossing of the Danube by the (Joths, in 

 A. D. 377, an era of unrest and displacement among all the peoples 

 from the Caspian to the Atlantic, which did not end till the destruction 

 of the Scandinavian power in Ireland at Clontarf, in 1014, and the 

 rolling back of the great Norwegian invasion of I'higland, at Stamford 

 Bridge, in lOGG. The Goths, the Vandals, Suabians, Burgundians, 

 Franks, Saxons, Lombards settled in various provinces of the Pomau 

 Em])ire and founded great kingdoms. Elinor tribes, such as the Alans, 

 Rugians, and Herulians, moved hither and thither, without effecting 



