GEOGRAPHICAL AND STATISTICAL VIEW OF THE 

 CONTEMPORARY SLAV PEOPLES. 1 



[With colored map.] 



By LUBOR NlEDERLE, 



Professor of Archeology and Ethnology, Bohemian University, Prague. 



INTRODUCTION. 



The original Slav people arose in central Europe by a gradual 

 linguistic and cultural division from the old Aryan or Indo-Euro- 

 pean units. 



From the physical standpoint, the original Slavs were in all proba- 

 bility somewhat composite, with differences in the type of the skull, 

 as well as in the color of the hair and eyes. They were probably 

 never entirely homogeneous, either culturally or linguistically. This 

 is substantiated by the fact that in the region occupied, evidently 

 from an early period, by the first Slavs there are found different 

 cranial types ; and as to complexion, one portion of the Slavs, at the 

 commencement of historical records concerning these people, is spoken 

 of as possessing light hair and eyes, while another portion is said to 

 have been dark in these respects. The remains of hair in the graves 

 support these statements. 



There existed also, before the present era, several distinct cultural 

 regions among the old Slavs, for we find in the west, between the 

 Elbe and Veser, other types of graves and with different contents 

 than on the east of the Veser. The former region connects in these 

 respects with that farther south, in central Europe, while the latter is 

 more nearly related to that north of the Black Sea. 



The linguistic differentiation was equally of ancient origin, and 

 was undoubtedly favored not merely by regional developments, but 

 also by isolation, migration, contact, mixing with foreign ele- 

 ments, etc. The eventual result of this differentiation in language 

 was that ancient Slavs, who must still be regarded as originally only 



1 Prepared for the Smithsonian Report, under supervision of the author, on the basis of 

 the publication bearing the title Slovansky Svet (The World of the Slavs), 8vo. Prague, 

 1910, pp. 1-197. Published also in Russian in the Slav encyclopedia, and in translation 

 in several other Slavic languages. 



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