VI THE ARYAN QUESTION 315 



tain, that the use of bronze in Europe originated 

 among the inhabitants of Etruria and radiated 

 thence, along the already established lines of 

 traffic to all parts of Europe, I do not see that his 

 contention could be upset. It would be hard to 

 prove either that the primitive Etruscans could 

 not have discovered the way to manufacture 

 bronze, or that they did not discover it and become 

 a great mercantile people in consequence, before 

 Phoenician commerce had reached the remote 

 shores of the Tyrrhene Sea. 



Can it be safely concluded that the palaeo- 

 metallic culture which we have been considering 

 was the appanage of any one of the western 

 Eurasiatic races rather than another? Did it 

 arise and develop among the brunet or the blond 

 long-heads, or among the brunet short-heads ? I 

 do not think there are any means of answering 

 these questions, positively, at present. Schrader 

 has pointed out that the state of culture of the 

 primitive Aryans, deduced from philological data, 

 closely corresponds with that which obtained 

 among the pile-dwellers in the neolithic stage. 

 But the resemblance of the early stages of civil- 

 isation among the most different and widely 

 separated races of mankind, should warn us that 

 archaeology is no more a sure guide in questions 

 of race than philology. 



With respect to the osteological characters of 



