422 THE ORIGIlSr OF THE SLAVS. 



age was marked by an elongated skull, a generally high stature, 

 and other features that permit us to term it blond dolichocephalic. 

 In the burial tombs of Hallstadt, as also in those which appear 

 about the beginning of the present era on the Vistula and in 

 Bohemia, this type is exclusively found. Judging from the skele- 

 tons collected from the burial tombs, it can be said that the entire 

 north, from the Danube to the Baltic, was occupied by this blond 

 dolichocephalic people until several centuries into the present era. 



When the cremationists ceased burning their dead the aspect of 

 things completely changed, and their crania begin to appear. We 

 then perceive that the inhabitants of the veiy regions where formerly 

 only blond dolichocephales were found are composed in the majority, 

 and here and there exclusively, of people of medium size with a 

 round skull or of the brachycephalic type. It therefore follows 

 that the cremationists were brachycephalic. Now, brachycephaly 

 is at present the essential, in fact, the only characteristic which 

 connects with one another the great majority of the peoples of 

 Slavic tongue. 



Those people who introduced bronze in the Occident also introduced 

 the rite of cremation ; they early mingled with the indigenes. 

 Directly and through its influence upon the indigenes we know that 

 that people was brachycephalic, with dark skin and medium or short 

 stature. They spread from the Danube toward the west during the 

 bronze age, especially toward its end. We reserve for this people 

 the name of Liguri. Before them came another people with the 

 same characteristics, brachycephalic and of the same origin, that 

 settled on the Danube. For this people the name of Veneti is set 

 apart, although it does not comprise all the brachycephales of the 

 Danube and never belonged to those of the eastern zone of its 

 territory. 



This settlement took place, as has been seen, at the beginning of 

 the iron or Hallstacltian age. These cremationists gain ground and 

 gradually become masters of the territory, at least north of the 

 Adriatic and in Pannonia. We have none of their crania, and even 

 in the countries where they constituted the entire iDopulation we can 

 not determine their personal appearance by direct observation, since 

 they burned their dead. But we have the crania of their direct 

 descendants, namely, of those who ceased cremating their dead under 

 the influence and the injunctions of Christianity, and these crania 

 are of the brachycephalic type. These brachycephales, who from 

 the Danube expanded northward as far as the innermost part of 

 Russia, can be traced wherever there are Slavs, losing somewhat only 

 in the intensity of their primitive characteristics in proportion as 

 they are remote from their point of departure, their center of 

 expansion. 



