CENTERS OF CIVILIZATION — SWANTON 371 



equally accurate. The Sumerians and their Semitic successors, on the 

 other hand, surpassed both in astronomy in spite of having associated 

 it with astrology. They identified five of the major planets, and could 

 predict eclipses with a high degree of accuracy. They introduced 

 the use of degrees, minutes, and seconds, divided the day into 24 

 (originally 12) hours, and the circle into 360 degrees and were the 

 originators of the Zodiac. Breasted states that "the earliest known 

 literature of entertainment was produced in the Twelfth Egyptian 

 Dynasty, 2000-1788 B. C," and he also claims for the Egyptians the 

 doubtful honor of having created the first empire in the world, 1580- 

 1350 B. C. Philology apparently received first serious study in India, 

 but that probably did not go back to the Indus culture. The same may 

 be said of Hindu philosophy and religion, though it has been demon- 

 strated that its non-Vedic elements stemmed from the Indus. India 

 is also supposed to have influenced the second great center of philos- 

 ophy in the ancient world, Greece, through Pythagoreanism, but it is 

 probable that Greece also drew philosophical inspiration from the 

 cultural centers nearer at hand. If we attempt to characterize the 

 governments of the several centers, we may say that Egypt, the Inca 

 Empire, and to a certain extent the Maya impress us as theocratic 

 despotisms, Sumeria as a group of military states, Crete as a trading 

 empire, and the Indus culture as one finding its outlet in communal 

 civic enterprise. 



Something has already been said regarding the physical types of 

 the occupants of the several cultural areas. Let us now take a somewhat 

 broader world view of this subject. The first classification of human 

 races to receive wide acceptance was that of Blumenbach into the 

 Caucasian or White, Mongolian or Yellow, Ethiopian or Black, Ma- 

 layan or Brown, and American or Ked. Cuvier reduced these to three : 

 White, Yellow, and Black; and Huxley recognized five: Australoid, 

 Mongoloid, Negroid, Xanthrochroic (yellow-haired), and Melanoch- 

 roic. Haeckel based his classification on hair texture, and gave the 

 following divisions: Wooly-haired (subdivided into fleece-haired 

 and tufted-haired), and smooth-haired (subdivided into straight- 

 haired and curly-haired). Retzius based his on types of heads and 

 prognathism; narrow heads and projecting jaws, narrow heads and 

 straight jaws, broad heads and projecting jaws, and broad heads and 

 straight jaws. The American anthropologist, D. G. Brinton, set up the 

 following groups: The Eurafrican race (including a north Mediter- 

 ranean and a south Mediterranean branch), the Austrafrican race 

 (including the Negrillo, Negro, and Negroid branches), the Asian 

 race (including the Sinitic and the Sibiritic branches), the American 

 race, and Insular and Littoral peoples (including the Nigritic, Malayic, 

 and Australia branches) . 



