THE PRE-HISTORIC RACES OF ITALY. 497 



be recognized in the present population of Italy. We have first the 

 PalfBolitbic Iberian savages, mere hunters and probably cannibals, liv- 

 ing in caves, ignorant of pottery, whose descendants may be traced in 

 Sardinia and Southern Italy. They were followed, in the early Neo- 

 lithic period, by the Liguriaus, possessed of pottery, but without domes- 

 tic auimals. Their descendants now occupy the Khtetian aud"Maritime 

 Alps. They were succeeded towards the close of the Neolithic age by 

 the Umbro-Latin race, who lived in huts and pile dwellings instead of 

 caves, who possessed oxen and sheep, canoes and wagons, and who 

 gradually acquired a knowledge of bronze. In the bronze age, some- 

 time before, the middle of the eleventh century b. c, they were over- 

 whelmed by the Etruscan inroad, their villages were destroyed, and 

 they fled southward from the invaders. Then, at the close of the fifth 

 century b. c, the Etruscan dominion was destroyed by the Boii and 

 other Gaulish tribes, who were in the iron stage of civilization. Finally 

 came the conquest of the Eoraaus, and afterwards those of the Heruls, 

 Goths, Huns, and Lombards. 



The people who lived in the pile dwellings in the valley of the Po, 

 and who are usually called Umbrians, were clearly of the same race as 

 the ancient Komans. The skull is of the same shape, the type of civili- 

 zation was the same, and Latin and Umbrian were merely dialects of 

 the same language. 



Owing to the practice of cremation genuine Roman skulls are rare, 

 and of skulls ostensibly Eoman many turn out to be those of freedmen 

 or provincials. But, judging from the few we possess, the shape of 

 the head was almost identical with that of the Umbrians, of the Swiss 

 lacustrine people, and of the Celtic round barrow race of Britain. The 

 great breadth of the Roman skull is well seen in the portrait busts of 

 Tiberius, Nero, Vespasian, Titus, and Marcus Aurelius. 



That the Romans were originally in the same pastoral stage of civil- 

 ization as the Umbrians is shown by the fact that the words for money 

 and property, pecunia and peculium, are derived from pecus, cattle ; 

 while the ox, which appears on some early Roman coins, may indicate 

 the fiict that the ox was the standard of pecuniary value. The hut 

 urns found in the ancient cemetery of Alba Longa show that the Latins 

 at first lived in huts like those of the Umbrians. The cedes Vestce in 

 the Forum, the most venerable relic of early Rome, was originallj- a, 

 hut of wickerwork and straw, and so was the casa RomiiU on the Pala- 

 tine. 



The population of Italy has now become so mixed that in many prov- 

 inces it is ditticult to detect and separate the original elements. But the 

 Sardinians and the peasants of Southern Italy still display the primi- 

 tive Iberian type, and the Greek type survives on the sites of some of 

 the old Greek colonies. For instance, at Naxos and Syracuse about 

 24 per cent, of the people have blue eyes, while at Palermo, which was 

 \ never a Greek city, the proportion is less than 1 per cent. In some 

 H. Mis. 129 32 



