238 METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY iv 



time it came into contact with European civilization. 

 The other four the Negroes, Mongolians. 

 Xanthochroi, and Melanochroi have always 

 existed in some of the localities in which they are 

 now found, nor do the negroes ever seem to have 

 voluntarily travelled beyond the limits of their 

 present area. But aDcient history is in a great 

 measure the record of the mutual encroachments 

 of the other three stocks. 



On the whole, however, it is wonderful how 

 little change has been effected by these mutual 

 invasions and intermixtures. As at the present 

 time, so at the dawn of history, the Melanochroi 

 fringed the Atlantic and the Mediterranean ; the 

 Xanthochroi occupied most of Central and 

 Eastern Europe, and much of Western and 

 Central Asia ; while Mongolians held the extreme 

 east of the Old World. So far as history teaches 

 us, the populations of Europe, Asia and Africa 

 were, twenty 1 centuries ago, just what they 

 are now, in their broad features and general dis- 

 tribution. 



The evidence yielded by Archaeology is not 

 very definite, but so far as it goes, it is to much 

 the same effect. The mound builders of Central 

 America seem to have had the characteristic short 

 and broad head of the modern inhabitants of that 

 continent. The tumuli and tombs of Ancient 

 Scandinavia, of pre-Eoman Britain, of Gaul, of 



I 1 We may now safely say thirty or forty. 1894.] 



