April 29, 1922] 



NATURE 



563 



The Aryan Problem. 



ON March 28, Mr. Harold Peake made a communi- 

 cation to tlie Royal Anthropological Institute 

 on the subject of Bronze Swords and the Aryan 

 Problem. He began by describing a type of sword, 

 with a long tang cast to fit the hand, the Type II. 

 of Naue, wliich is beheved to have originated in the 

 Danube basin. He showed how the butt of the blade 

 had passed from a depressed semicircle through 

 various forms to that of a flattened oval, and how its 

 convex outhne had then gradually become concave ; 

 he then divided the swords into a progressive series 

 of seven types. He explained how the first of these 

 had developed from a dagger, while the last had been 

 found in the Hallstatt cemetery, where iron weapons 

 had been the rule. 



Mr. Peake next considered the distribution of the 

 series, showing that type A was of Hungarian origin ; 

 type B ranged thence northwards to Denmark ; 

 type D was found in Greece and Egypt and in certain 

 regions of Italy ; type E ranged across France, 

 England, and Ireland ; type F was absent from 

 Hungary and was confined to the mountain region 

 of central Europe ; while type G, the Hallstatt 

 type, was also absent from the Hungarian plain 

 but widely distributed to the west and north. 



It was suggested that the Egyptian specimens were 

 relics of the Ek-wesh, who invaded Egypt in 1220 

 B.C., and that those from Greece had been introduced 

 by the Achaean invaders, who were, Mr. Peake 

 thought, only a few wandering heroes, of Thraco- 

 Phrygian origin, who made themselves masters of 

 city states in Greece. This gave an approximate 

 date to type D of 1250-1150 B.C., while type G could 

 not be earlier than 1000-900 B.C. ; he suggested that 

 type A was evolved after 1400 B.C. 



It was argued that the distribution of these swords 

 must be referred rather to invasion than to trade, 

 and it was suggested that peoples emerging from 

 the Hungarian plain and adjoining mountain regions 

 had passed thence, in 1350 to Denmark, in 1250 to 

 Greece and Italy, and in 1150 to France and Britain. 



Mr. Peake then discussed the absence of types F 

 and G from Hungary, and showed evidence of the 

 departure of some of these people through the Dukla 

 pass, across Galicia and Podoha to the Koban. 

 He showed how they learnt the use of iron from tribes 

 on the southern slopes of the Caucasus and suggested 

 their return to Hungary with their new weapons. 

 Some of these invaded Greece as Dorians, while others 

 pressed up the Save to the iron-fields and to Hallstatt 

 for the salt-mines ; they destroyed the lake-dwellings 

 in the mountain zone, whence refugees fled down 

 the Rhine to Holstein, to the east of England and 

 to Ireland, while others passed through the Belfort 

 gap into France and thence down the Rhone, Loire, 

 and Seine. Other invaders crossed the Predel pass 

 into Italy, destroyed the terra-mara culture of the 

 Po Valley, and settled north of the Apennines near 

 Bologna, introducing the Villanova culture, while 

 others again passed by the old route into France, 

 and followed the refugees down the Rhone and 

 Loire but not down the Seine. 



Thus there were two movements of peoples allied 

 but in some ways distinct. The first waves had 

 bronze swords and included the refugees from the 

 lake-dwelhngs of the mountain zone ; the second 

 wave had iron swords and were the Dorians, Villa- 

 nova, and Hallstatt peoples. 



Turning to the Unguistic side, Mr. Peake sketched 

 in outhne the Aryan hypothesis and referred to a 



paper pubUshed in 1891 by Sir John Rhys. In 

 this paper it was suggested that two waves of similar 

 people had dispersed from central Europe, westward 

 and southward, the first speaking Q and the second 

 P tongues. To the first belonged Gaehc, Erse, Latin, 

 and Ionic Greek, to the second Welsh, Osco-Umbrian, 

 and Greek. Sir John Rhys had suggested that the 

 second wave consisted of non-Aryan people, probably 

 from the Swiss lake-dwellings, who had learnt Aryan 

 speech from their subjects. 



Mr. Peake pointed out that Sir John's theory had 

 not been well received, especially in Germany, and 

 that certain of his conclusions could not be accepted. 

 The Ionic dialect of Herodotus was not an archaic 

 form, though perhaps Thraco- Phrygian might repre- 

 sent the Q form of Greek speech. Again, evidence 

 was against the Swiss lake-dwellers being the conquer- 

 ing labiahsers. Still archaeology showed evidence 

 of two dispersals, and it might be that Sir John's 

 theory was correct in the main though erroneous 

 in some of its details. 



The case was tested in Italy, where Mr. Peak6 

 showed that the bronze swords were confined to a 

 definite region, mainly around Fucino, while the 

 Villanova culture centred chiefly north of the Apennines. 

 He exhibited a map of the Latin or Q dialects, which 

 coincided very nearly with the distribution of the 

 bronze swords, except in one or two particulars, and 

 to account for these he related a story told by 

 Dionysius of Hahcarnassus how the Aborigines dwelt 

 in tliis area, but one night the Sabines, a P people, 

 issuing from Amiternum, dislodged some of them] 

 who eventually marched towards Rome and settled 

 there. 



Mr. Peake suggested that the Italian test seemed to 

 prove that so far as this peninsula was concerned the 

 archaeological and philological evidences agreed. In 

 Greece the first wave consisted of a few heroes only, 

 the second wave was the only true invasion ; herei 

 as would be expected, we had only P speech. In 

 France both waves covered the same ground, except 

 that in the valley of the Seine the latter was lacking. 

 It was in this valley that we had the best evidence of 

 Q speech in Gaul, the river Sequana and the tribe 

 Sequani. He maintained, therefore, that the equa- 

 tions all round were as clear as could be expected, 

 and that the main features of Sir John Rhys' 

 hypothesis were justified. 

 British swords for 25 years and that he agreed with 



Mr. Parker Brewis said that he had been studying 

 the typological scheme proposed by Mr. Peake. He 

 was also prepared to accept the dates, though type 

 G lasted in Britain to a much later date. Mr. E. 

 C. R. Armstrong also agreed with the typology and 

 chronology, but said that the philologists of Dubhn 

 would not accept the view that the Q people had 

 ever settled in England. 



After some remarks by Mr. Parkyn, Mr. Peake 

 replied that his chronology referred to central Europe 

 and not to Britain, and that he was well aware of the 

 views of the Dubhn philologists. He was prepared 

 to admit, at any rate for the sake of argument, that 

 there was no hnguistic evidence for the iearly presence 

 of Q people in England, but that such negative 

 evidence was not conclusive in the Ught of the positive 

 evidence he had adduced. At the request of the 

 chairman. Dr. A. C. Haddon, he then outhned his 

 views on the racial affinities of the people he had 

 been discussing, and on the original dispersion of 

 the Aryan people. 



NO. 2739, VOL. 109] 



