KABYLES OF NORTH AFRICA — LISSAUER, 535 



century, immigrated as far as Andalusia. These northlanders had 

 also introduced from Europe into northern Africa the custom of 

 megalithic structures, as was also maintained by Bertrand. 



On the other hand, Shaw x declared that the blonds, it is true, im- 

 migrated from Europe, but only in historic time, that they were the 

 descendants of the Vandals whom Genseric, in 429 A. D., led over 

 from Gibraltar to northern Africa. This view was afterwards taken 

 up by other investigators, especially Quedenfeld. 2 But Broca, on 

 the basis of information of Procop, rightly points out that most of 

 the 50,000 Vandals whom Genseric brought over, perished in the 

 struggles with the native Moore, Numidians, and later with the 

 Byzantines, so that in 544 A. D. only 420 men remained who were 

 partly killed with their last leader Gontharis and partly transferred 

 to Constantinople. Since then the Vandals have entirely disappeared 

 from northern Africa. 



Besides, the ancient authors of the third century B. C. and the 

 third century A. D. assert that there were among the native Berbers 

 many fair and blond ones. 3 



Finally, Sergi, 4 on the basis of his craniological investigations, 

 maintained that the blonds did not immigrate but were native in 

 northern Africa, especially on the heights of the Moroccan Atlas, 

 under the influence of the altitude climate. He refers for this to 

 Livi's results of anthropometry, according to which in the popula- 

 tion of Italy dwelling at above 400 meters altitude the blonds pre- 

 dominate; below 400 meters, the brown. Against this Quedenfeld 5 

 points out that among the Shloh in southern Morocco not a single 

 blond is to be found notwithstanding that the people partly live on 

 still higher mountains on the great Atlas. 



Still other hypotheses have been set up to explain the strange 

 appearance of blonds among the Kabyles. They are said to be de- 

 scendants of Eoman mercenaries from the north, or to have come 

 from the East, after the explusion of the Hyksos from Egypt. The 

 former view seems to be contradicted by the numerically and geo- 

 graphically great diffusion of the blonds, while the latter view lacks 

 any record of the existence of blonds among the Hyksos. 



If it is asked which view is most probable on the basis of our 

 present knowledge, I can only say that as long as we are ignorant of 

 all the conditions on which the distribution of the pigment among 

 the various races of mankind depends we must be guided by actual 

 observations. Now we know that only in northern Europe, and 



1 Revue d'Authropologie, 1876, p. 398 ff. 



2 ZeitsChrift fur Ethnologie, 1888, p. 115. 



*Th. Fischer, Mittelmeerbilder, N. P., 1908, p. 390. 



* Sergi, The Mediterranean race. London, 1901, p. 73 ff. 



"Zeitschrift fur Ethnologie, 1888, p. 115. 



