122 



NA TURE 



[March 31, 1910 



must be given to the great wealth -of useful illustra- 

 trations it contains. These include 396 figures and 

 maps in the text, 48 plates with very beautiful photo- 

 graphs of scenery, &c., and two folding coloured 

 maps. J. W. J. 



THE PREHISTORIC EVOLUTION OF ITALY. 

 The Stone and Bronze Ages in Italy and Sicily. By 



T. Eric Peet. Pp. 528; maps and plates. (Oxford : 



Clarendon Press, 1909.) Price 165. net. 

 ' I 'HIS book gives a clear and exhaustive description 

 J- of the results of the numerous excavations 

 made by Italian archaeologists and a critical discus- 

 sion of the material obtained. The author succeeds 

 in giving a remarkably complete record of the evolu- 

 tion of culture in Italy from the Palaeolithic age down 

 to the Iron age. In arriving at his conclusions he 

 relies almost entirely on technological data, which, 

 though of great value in determining the state of 

 culture of the peoples^ with which he deals, are of 

 much less value than the data of physical anthropo- 

 logy in solving racial problems. Large numbers of 

 skeletons appear to have been discovered in the im- 

 mense number of tombs that have been investigated 

 by the Italian archaeologists, but only in two or three 

 cases does the author give us the measurements of 

 these skeletons. As a result, many problems have to 

 be left unsolved which with the assistance of physical 

 data would apparently be easily soluble. For instance, 

 a type of Neolithic pottery is found in a cave at Villa- 

 frati, in north Sicily, which differs from the Neolithic 

 types found in other parts of the island, and has 

 analogies with pottery found in certain neighbouring 

 countries. The author is unable to decide whether 

 this pottery was introduced by the immigration of a 

 new race or by trade intercourse with foreign 

 countries. He appears to have overlooked the im- 

 portant fact, mentioned by him in a footnote, that 

 four skulls having an average index of 82"2 were 

 found in the same cave as the new type of' pottery. 

 Knowing that the average index of the ancient 

 Mediterranean race is 74-75, the physical anthropo- 

 logist would have no hesitation in saying that the 

 probability was immensely in favour of the new type 

 of pottery being introduced into Sicily by the immigra- 

 tion of a new race. 



The difference in the technique of the Neolithic 

 implements and pottery in north and south Italy leads 

 the author to the conclusion that the populations of 

 these regions were two branches of the Mediterranean 

 race who arrived in Italy by different routes. The 

 southern branch almost certainly came by sea from 

 Crete; about the route of the northern branch there 

 is not the same certainty. Towards the end of "the 

 Neolithic period, pottery of the "dolmen" type ap- 

 peared in south Italy, north Sicily, and Sardinia, and 

 superseded the older types. 



In the period coming after the Neolithic, which the 

 author, following the Italian archaeologists, calls the 

 Eneolithic period, copper makes its appearance along- 

 side of stone. The rock-hewn tomb is introduced in 

 south Italy and Sicily, and a great advance takes 

 place in the technique of stone implements. Several 

 NO. 2109, VOL. 83] 



new types of pottery appear. One of these is dis- 

 tinctly /Egean, so there can be no doubt liiat there 

 was trade intercourse in the Eneolithic period between 

 Crete and south Italy and Sicily. 



A remarkable type of pottery occurs in the early 

 Eneolithic period in south-west Sicily in association 

 with rock-hewn tombs. The ornamentation consists 

 of rectilinear patterns painted in black on a ground 

 of " white slip," with which the clay pot is coated. 

 The distribution of this pottery is interesting; it is 

 not found in Crete, but it has been found in Thessaly 

 and in other parts of north Greece; fragments have 

 also been found at Molfetta, in Apulia, south Italy. 

 It looks, therefore, that there was a second route of 

 trade or of migration from the east, across north 

 Greece, the Adriatic, and south Italy to Sicily, which 

 is quite distinct from the /Egean sea route along 

 which the greater part of the^'Whde of south Italy 

 with the east, passed. 



The author leans to the view that the great 

 cultural changes of the Eneolithic period were not 

 due to the immigration of a new race, but to foreign 

 influence. Measurements of skulls found associated 

 with the "painted white slip" ware might possibly 

 change this opinion. The average cephalic index of 

 four skulls found at Castelluccio with this ware was' 

 77'9, which looks significantly higher than that of the 

 Mediterranean race. 



The Bronze age in Italy is treated topographically. 

 A very painstaking and up-to-date description is given 

 of the material found in the lake dwellings, in the 

 Terremare, and in Bronze-age hut-settlements and 

 caves of north Italy. Chapters are then devoted 

 to the Bronze age in south Italy, and to the Bronze 

 age in Sicily and Sardinia. 



In a chapter on the racial problem, the author deals 

 with the racial affinities and origins of the peoples 

 who introduced bronze into Italy. There are two 

 theories in the field, that of Brizio and that of 

 Pigorini. The author favours the latter. According 

 to Pigorini 's theory, the hut villages and caverns of 

 the Neolithic age in north Italy were inhabited 

 by a dolichocephalic race (called usually Ibero-Liguri) 

 who inhumed their dead. At the end of the Neolithic 

 period a new race appeared in north Italy which 

 cremated its dead. This race planted the first lake 

 dwellings in Lombardy. In the full Bronze age 

 another branch of the same race invaded the eastern 

 district of north Italy, and planted the lake dwell- 

 ings of the Veneto and the Terremare of Emilia. 

 At the end of the Bronze age, part of the new people 

 crossed the Apennines and entered Tuscany and 

 Latium. This new people Pigorini calls the Italici. 

 He considers that they were of the same race as the 

 Swiss lake dwellers, and therefore probably brachy- 

 cephalic. There is no direct evidence of this, as 

 cremation was an invariable burial custom among the 

 Italian like dwellers and the Terremare folk. 



The volume is well printed, contains many excel- 

 lent illustrations, and four valuable maps showing the 

 distribution of sites in the Neolithic, Eneolithic, and 

 Bronze ages. No student of the prehistory' of man 

 in Italy, or indeed in Europe, can dispense with read- 



