CENTERS OF CIVILIZATION — SWANTON 373 



Greek civilization received its stimulus from Crete, Egypt, and western 

 Asia, and not from the north, any such strain could have had no 

 significance for the primary civilizing effort. The inhabitants of 

 those three regions belong to the darker subdivisions of the White 

 race, those which approximate in some measure the Yellow peoples 

 of eastern Asia and the Blacks to the south. In a trinal classifica- 

 tion four centers, Egypt, Sumeria, Crete, and the Indus, may with 

 the reservations just given be attributed to the Whites; and three 

 others, China, Central America, and Peru, to the Yellows. 



If we fall back upon a dual classification, a Northern Light race 

 and a Southern Dark one, the centers of civilization fall within the 

 former. However, any deduction regarding inherent racial ability 

 has to be qualified immediately by the admission that none of these 

 centers was in territory occupied by the ultrawhite subdivisions. All 

 are among darker Whites and among Yellows. In Egypt and the 

 Indus, moreover, we have to admit the intrusion of a Negroid strain. 



Apart from the above-noted slight advantage which light strains 

 seem to possess in a dual classification of mankind, we may say that 

 the primary centers of civilization show diversity in physical type, 

 language, and general culture, and that all have contributed to the 

 sum total of human attainment. Moreover, there is evidence of 

 heterogeneity at an early period in the population of these centers and 

 subjection to heterogeneous influences from without. As we have 

 seen, at least two types made their appearance in predynastic Egypt, 

 three at Kish in Babylonia, and three or four at Mohenjo-daro in the 

 Indus Valley. We may add that Egypt lay on the edge of the Hamitic 

 family of languages and had constant dealings with both the Semites 

 and Hurrians, Sumeria lay between the Hurrians and Semites and 

 had constant dealings with the Indus, and the Indus Valley lay be- 

 tween the Dravidians and Aryans with Mongoloids not far to the north. 

 Both of the Chinese culture centers postulated by Eberhard lay where 

 three culture areas came together. In the New World the Maya 

 country was between the Uto-Aztecan peoples — with whom they were 

 perhaps connected — and tribes with cultures following South Ameri- 

 can patterns. The Peruvian area really contained two cultures, one 

 belonging to the interior and one coastal, the latter, and perhaps the 

 former as well, consisting in turn of several minor centers. 



The question thus arises whether human culture in these areas did 

 not respond to influences other than those of race. There were no 

 Blacks or Whites in the New World to affect culture either way. In 

 the Eastern Hemisphere all primary culture centers lie in semiarid 

 areas between 25° and 50° north latitude and toward the center of the 

 land mass of the continent. The fact that they lay far north of the 

 Equator has given rise to the supposition that climate had much to do 

 with their origin. It has been claimed that a temperate climate fur- 



