414 THE ORIGIN OF THE SLAVS. 



all the Gallic tribes ended bv fusing Avitli the indigenes, and disap- 

 peared. 



On the other hand, the surAival of the native cremationists is 

 definitely proved by the persistence of crematory cemeteries from the 

 Hallstadtian epoch nntil after the conquest and assimilation of the 

 Gauls — nay, down to the Roman period. Such a prolonged existence 

 may be assigned, for instance, to the cemeteries of Jezerine, of Prozor 

 in Croatia. Meclo in the Tyrol, Gurina in Carinthia, Idria m Istria, 

 and Ribic in Bosnia," where amber beads and Roman coins of 

 Hadrian (117-138 A. D.) and of Antoninus (138-161 A. D.) were 

 found in the cinerary urns alongside of beads of blue glass. 



It is certainly significant thus to see in the original home of the 

 Yeneti the ancient rite of cremation triumphing over the custom of 

 burial imported by the Gauls, and persisting as the exclusive funeral 

 ceremony under Roman dominion, at least till the end of the second 

 century of the present era. 



IDEA'TIFICATION OF CREMATIONISTS OF ILLYRIA. PANNONIA AND BOHEMIA WITH 



ANCESTORS OF SLAVS. 



This much has been established above, and it should be remembered 

 that the natives of Pannonia and Illyria. who as early as the tenth 

 centur}' B. C. burned their dead, continued their existence in these 

 countries in the presence of the Gauls and Romans. It was these 

 cremationists. speaking a language that was neither Latin nor Gallic 

 nor German, with whom the Romans became acquainted in Pannonia. 

 Mixed and fused with the Dacians, they were strong enough at the 

 time of the Roman conquest to put on foot well organized armies 

 under brave leaders. The}" remained, hoAvever, very barbarous, and 

 their national and ethnic individuality was eifaced by the armies and 

 the strong absorbing administration of Rome, though they were not 

 exterminated. Who could they have been if they were not the ances- 

 tors of the Slavs? What could be the inscriptions of the Veneti in 

 the northeast of Italy, which Pauli '^ was able to clearly distinguish 

 from Etruscan inscriptions, if the}' were not Slavic? Pauli calls 

 their language lUyrian. But what Avas this language if not the one 

 that Polybius called the Venetish. Tacitus the Pannonian — the Slavic 

 of the tomb inscriptions of the old Venetish city of Aquila ? There 

 ic no indication of the existence in this region of any languages other 

 than the ShiA'ic and the Uxo other knoAvn tongues. Gallic and Latin. 



In Bohemia, especially in the east and northeast, the cremationists 



o Wissenschaftliche Mittheilnngen aus Bosnieu. VII, 1900. 



?> M. Pauli, Die A'eneder und ihre Sctiriftdenliiiialer, Leipzig. 1891, p. 456, 



