562 ANTHROPOLOGY IN THE LAST TWENTY YEARS. 



esting invesrigatious were made to prove how the Indo-Germaus iu their 

 immigrations from the east and from the central parts of the mountains 

 of Asia, had brought with them on their advance towards Europe, all 

 sorts of things ami formula^, not only the knowledge of the smelting of 

 bronze, but also precious stones like nephrite and jadeite. But this Indo- 

 Germanic theory has received lately some very damaging blows and 

 none more destructive than from the quarters of prehistoric archaeology. 



In spite of much care, we liave not as yet succeeded in finding any 

 patterns iu the supposed Asiatic home of bronze. I myself have made 

 strenuous elibrts to find original Indian bronzes, but have not obtained 

 types which would justify the statement that this importation alluded 

 to ever took place. Not even sufficient proof can be found for saying 

 that the classic formula of 90 parts of copper and 10 parts of tin was in 

 use in India. This formula remained as constant as the measures of 

 weight and length. Both facts present a good argument for the exist- 

 ence of a continuous communication of knowledge from one generation 

 to the next. 



Indian bronzes are zinc bronzes, like mixtures found in our country be- 

 longing to the time of the Eoman empire. There are no authentic speci- 

 mens of them found iu Europe dating before the Christian era. Pre- 

 historic archaeology therefore at the present offers the poorest kind of 

 testimony for the Indo-Germauic origin of bronze. Moreover, the routes 

 of migration of the Indo-Germans are mapped out differently. Some 

 authors put them northward of the Aral and Caspian Sea, others to the 

 south. The northern route must be considered an entirely arbitrary 

 hypothesis, for there have never been found any Aryan tribes in those 

 regions. On thp other hand, we find along the supposed southern route 

 of the Indo-Germans mainly a population of brachycephalous peoples, 

 which fills the Caucasus and the Armenian highlands, Thrace, and Illy- 

 ria. All these differ materially from those inhabiting the north, espe- 

 cially from the Scandinavians. This Indo-Germauic hypothesis is 

 attended with still another difficulty. Existing races in this region not 

 only differ among themselves in their physical composition and are 

 crossed in various ways, but they also diverge widely in many of the 

 conditions of life. 



Archaeological researches have nowhere led to the beginning of a 

 common civilization in an indisputably Aryan territory. Of course this 

 does not necessitate an attempt to locate the origin of the Ayran race 

 in Germany or Belgium, as has been proposed in the case where the race 

 of Cannstatt or of Neanderthal (a dolichocephalous people) is said to 

 represent the original central stock. 



The prehistoric theory of the much abused skull of Cannstatt has 

 been much shattered ; it does not fit into that far off period into which 

 our French neighbors place it. Too little attention has been paid to 

 the proposition : that international intercourse is a more important factor 

 archceologically considered than we are icont to think. With an increasing 



