^^o 



NATURE 



[February ii., 191 5 



ing of the occiput— such as frequently occurs in our 

 Bronze-age invaders— ^s a characteristic feature of the 

 German head. 



We look in vain for the ancestors of our Bronze- 

 age invaders among the modern peoples who live 

 along the German or Dutch shores of the North Sea. 

 When, however, we turn to the investigations carried 

 out by Danish anthropolgists during the last seventy- 

 five years we find a key to our problem. The classical 

 researches of Nilsson brought to light in the Neolithic 

 graves of Denmark a people with exactly the same 

 rounded form of head as that of our British invaders. 

 It was at first believed that these round-heads were the 

 original inhabitants of Denmark, but later discoveries 

 showed that the long-headed race of the long-barrow 

 or Scandinavian type — which also occurred in Neo- 

 lithic graves — was the older form. Our Bronze-age 

 ancestors had reached the Danish peninsula in the 

 Neolithic period. Recently Prof. Nielsen has pub- 

 lished a very instructive table, showing how the head- 

 form has altered at various periods in Denmark. His 

 table is as follows : — 



The table shows that after the Neolithic invasion 

 round-heads became almost as common as long-heads 

 in Denmark. It will be remembered that the round- 

 barrows have revealed a similar proportion in Eng- 

 land. A further parallel between Denmarli and Eng- 

 land is seen in the fate of the round-heads. By pre- 

 Roman times the long-head had again asserted its 

 dominance in both countries ; in Denmark the round- 

 heads form only 3 per cent, of the pre-Roman grave 

 skulls. But after the Roman period the histories of 

 the two countries diverge ; the high proportion of 

 long-heads disappeared from the Danish population, 

 so that now they form only about 12 per cent. There 

 can be little doubt as to the cause of the recrudescence 

 of round-heads in Denmark. Her land-frontier is 

 open to Germany and her population has undergone a 

 change in head-form similar to that which has over- 

 taken the people of Prussian Germany in post-Roman 

 times. 



In Denmark, then, we may recognise two invading 

 waves of round-heads ; but it is the oldest — the Neo- 

 lithic wave — containing men marked by all the 

 physical characters which we recognise in the English 

 round-barrow men which interests us here. That 

 was the first wave of round-heads to break through 

 the long-headed population in Western Europe and 

 reach the shores of the North Sea. Before the next 

 wave broke, the Danes had apparently become again 

 a long-headed people. Denmark was not the only 

 country to suffer from the first invasion. Our " round- 

 barrow " race hod formed the settlements in the south 

 of Sweden and on the south-western coasts of Nor- 

 way. Even now, as in parts of England, the 

 descendants of that early invasion can be traced in 

 the lands in which the round-heads settled. The 

 round-heads also reached the lands at the mouths of 

 the Elbe, Wesser, and Ems. Oldenburg, between 

 the estuaries of the Wesser and the Ems, has vielded 

 Neolithic graves. Oat o. four skulls from such graves 

 one is similar in form to that of our Bronze-age 

 invaders. Apparently, too, they reached the coast by 

 way of the Rhine. At least the Dutch people living 

 in districts near the mouth of the Rhine show a much 

 higher degree of brachycephaly than their neighbours 

 either to the north or south. We have already traced 

 the entrance of our Brcnz^^-age type into northern 



NO. 2363, VOL. 94] 



France in the Neolithic period. They, too, reached 

 the coast of Normandy. 



We have made a tour round Europe in search of 

 the native land of our Bronze-age invaders. We 

 have merely found secondary settlements along the 

 eastern shores of the North Sea and the possible 

 points of their embarkation. Their native land we 

 have not discovered. Our predecessors, when in diffi- 

 culty over the origin of a European race, fell back on 

 Asia ; they had an infallible belief in the racial poten- 

 tiality of that continent. There is now a distinct 

 change amongst European anthropologists in their 

 attitude towards such problems. They believe that 

 our own continent may have produced its own races. 

 But so far we have searched in vain for the cradle of 

 the European round-headed stock; we have found 

 neither the beginning of the dark-haired true Alpine 

 type nor of the fair-haired northern form from which 

 our round-barrow men sprang. But it is lawful for us 

 to infer that the centre of dispersion is the probable 

 cradle of origin. Now all the evidence at our disposal 

 points to the central mountainous region of Europe 

 as the centre of dispersion. It is therefore in the 

 plains along the northern flanks of the central moun- 

 tainous region of Europe that we may expect to find 

 the cradle of our round-headed British ancestry. 



The conquest of Europe by the " round-heads " is 

 one of the most amazing revelations of prehistoric 

 research. The outlook for the future of the fair- 

 haired, long-headed stock does not, at first sight, 

 seem very promising. Prof. Gustav Retzius, when 

 he delivered the Huxley Lecture before this institute 

 in 1909, gave expression to such a view. "There lie," 

 he said, " in the circumstances to which I have called 

 attention, a very veal danger of the north European 

 long-headed race not being able to hold its own. Just 

 as it has been ousted durmg the past thousand years 

 from Germany and other countries in Central and 

 Eastern Europe by the dark-haired, small-staturpd 

 round-heads, it will probably have to yield in Britain 

 too, and be reduced in numbers, perhaps by degrees 

 disappear entirely out of the fatherland of their 

 ancestors and of themselves, by reason of the ever- 

 increasing might and power of industrialism with 

 which thev seem ill-fitted to cope successfully in the 

 long run. The prospect is depressing, it cannot be 

 denied, but the development of things in the world is 

 not seldom harsh and unmerciful." 



Prof. Retzius's statement is that of a man who 

 commands the respect and esteem of all anthropolo- 

 gists ; he speaks of the fate of his own — the Scan- 

 dinavian — racial stock, and is therefore predisposed 

 to take the most hopeful outlook possible. It is 

 beyond denial that in France, Austria, Russia, and 

 in the greater parts of Germany and Italy a round- 

 headed stock has ousted a long-headed one. Scan- 

 dinavia, England, and Spain have escaped this 

 domination by reason of their comparative isolation. 

 Yet I dare think the future of the big-bodied, fair- 

 haired, long-headed Eurf pean stock may be more 

 prosperous than Prof. Retzius is inclined to think. 

 In the first place we have clear proof that at one 

 time — some 4000 or 5000 years ago — the round-headed 

 stock did break through and reach the western shores 

 of Europe. It leavened England, but became sub- 

 merged ; it met a similar fate in western Germany 

 and in Holland In the earlier centuries of the pre- 

 sent era the long-heads in north-western Europe must 

 have undergone a recrudescence in numbers and in 

 power. They broke eastwards on the plains of the 

 Vistula and Danube ; they imposed their speech on the 

 conquered peoples, bu*: the vanquished imposed on 

 them their features of face, head, and body. They 

 broke westwards into France, and lost both their 



