560 ANTHROPOLOGY IN THE LAST TWENTY YEARS. 



have been in the mountains of Austria, while the Germans contended 

 that the starting point must be looked for farther south. 1 myself, 

 although recognizing the importance of this local development, was in 

 favor of the German theory. It seems to me that every day the bonds 

 are made stronger of a detinite connection among the nations of the 

 north and south as regards their civilization. 



My own travt'ls in places of ancient human civilization as well as a 

 study of recent literature convince me that the numerous finds nuule 

 in Egyi)t uiul IJabylonia prove conclusively that the origins of our 

 civilization are to be found only to a small degree in our own country, 

 or that they have arisen out of individual necessities, but that on the 

 contrary there exists a connection with the prehistoric times of those 

 nations of ancient civilizations, and that from them there have been 

 derived our present lines of culture, i will not say anything further 

 concerning this point, only to call your attention to a publication of 

 investigations in our Ijcrliner Zeitschriit tiir Ethnologic concerning old 

 weights and measures. These investigations demonstrate again the 

 fact that our i)resent weights and measures existed in all their details 

 in remotest antiquity and were at that time in common use, that our 

 modern measures correspond to the old as far as one tenth of a gram, 

 and that we therefore have not made any advancement in respect to 

 them since 1000 u. a. 



I have stated elsewhere that only a few people can be called inventors. 

 At times it haiipens indeed that similar inventions are made at the 

 same time in different places, and that the same ideas make their way 

 in different directions, and it is said at such times " these things were 

 in the air." But it is not in the air but in living human beings where 

 such things exist. Yet if at times two men arrive at the same thing, 

 a closer study proves that after all there is a ditference. Everywhere, 

 whenever we can follow the history of human culture in individual 

 things, we lind that it was not the mrrlc of the masses which determined 

 the (jreat lines of civilisation, but the work of individuals, or of individual 

 tribes, or of individual nations, if you please. 



Not only in our study but in other matters however we met with 

 numerous contradictions which for a long time impeded the discovery 

 of the true direction of civilization in general, and the connections of the 

 civilization of different countries. This ditiiculty is so great because 

 tirst of all a mass of antiquated traditions remaining until the present 

 must be discarded in order to determine this question aright. There 

 are in Europe, perhaps three or four museums in which Caucasian 

 antiquities are more richly represented than anywhere else, and among 

 them your Iini)erial Museum here in Vienna occupies a prominent place. 



Until a very recent period when these collections came to Europe it 

 was a rigid dogma of philologists and ar<;hieologists that the bronze 

 culture had its origin in the Caucasus. Its imi)ossibility has now been 

 proven, for we do not lind bronze of a primitive form or mixture in the 



