THE ORIGIN OF THE SLAVS. 405 



articles of amber and Jjone were of home manufacture. This coloni- 

 zation preceded the civilization of Tene and the conquests of the Gauls 

 on the Danube and in Illyria. These cremationists never quitted the 

 soil thus colonized about the end of the eighth certury B. C. Their 

 connection with the Adriatic has never since been broken, and neither 

 the Gauls nor the Germans have definitely dispossessed them. 



The present Slavic peoples of the West will be shown to be the 

 descendants of these immigrants of the Hallstadtian period, and con- 

 sequently they themselves were Slavs. 



II. 



CLOSE RELATION OF CINERARY TOMBS WITH THE VENETI. 



Cinerary sej)ulchers have been discovered wherever the Veneti 

 have gone. From information furnished by Tacitus," added to that 

 by Journandes,^ it follows that the Veneti, driven by the Goths from 

 the lower Vistula, were forced to the east of that river. They mixed 

 with peoples who buried their dead. When Tacitus says that the 

 Veneti were in contact with the Sarmatians he speaks, without doubt, 

 of the Lithuanians along the Narew River. Traces of cemeteries wdth 

 cinerary urns are also found to the north of the Bog and in Courland. 

 The Veneti have also communicated somewhat of their physical 

 characteristics to the Finns who were settled in the littoral, and the 

 Lithuanians who occupied the interior. It is at least possible that 

 the crania of the ancient toml)s in the vicinity of Wenden were brachy- 

 cephalic. 



Various modes and arrangements of cinerary cemeteries have been 

 observed in the ancient seats of the Veneti. The cineraries north 

 of the Danube, in Bohemia, Moravia, on the Elbe, the Oder, and 

 the Vistula as far as the Baltic are like those of the Adriatic, Pan- 

 nonia, Bosnia, and Italy. According to a recent comparative study " 

 of the cinerary urns of various regions, the first and most important 

 group, that of Lusatia, recalls all the types of those of Illyria and 

 also some of Italy. The second group, that of Aurith, on the right 

 bank of the Oder, south of Frankfort, shows resemblances to the 

 types of Lusatia of a certain zone, extending from Saxony through 

 Posen as far as western Prussia. A third group, that of Goeritz, 

 likewise on the right bank of the Oder, north of Frankfort, has also 

 for its basis the type of Lusatia and includes urns identical with 

 those of Illyria and Italy. The fourth group, that of the large 

 cemetery of Billendorf, in the district of Sorau, also comprises 

 specimens much akin to those of Villanova in Italy. 



a Germania, XLIII. f Voss. Zeitschrift filr Ethnologie, 1903, p. 1G7. 



& Histoire des Goths, II. 



