THE ADVANCE OP PREHISTORIC HUMANITY 111 



worked in Italy and Switzerland in the millennium 

 before Christ. 



We are now well within the historical period, and must 

 not pursue the inquiry further. To attempt to show in 

 detail the evolution of the arts, sciences, religions, and 

 social and political institutions that make up civilisation, 

 is far beyond the scope of this little work. I will 

 conclude with a few pages on the very obscure question 

 of the origin of races and of languages. 



The " cradle of the human race " is no longer sought 

 on the uplands of Central Asia, wherever it may have 

 been. We have seen that the evidence is much too 

 scanty to justify any attempt to locate it, but the few 

 indications we have point toward the lost land south of 

 India. A dispersal from that point supposing that the 

 land-connection still existed with Asia, Africa, and 

 Australia would be easily understood. One branch 

 travelled north-eastward, and formed the great stock of 

 the Mongolian and cognate races, and sent a branch 

 across the northern bridge into America, to flower at 

 length into the Mexican and Peruvian civilisations. The 

 centre of another group is India, round which we find 

 numerous fragments of the primitive peoples. A third 

 stream flows into Africa, and stagnates in the black races 

 south of the Equator. So far the imagination travels 

 with ease, but " the Mediterranean race," or the group 

 of races in South-east Asia, North Africa, and Europe, 

 offers a very entangled problem. 



The older theory that the " Aryans " overflowed from 

 Asia into Persia and Europe is generally rejected, and a 

 dozen theories dispute its place. It is easy to connect 

 the languages of the old Hindoos, Persians, Greeks, 

 Romans, Teutons, etc., but languages are often borrowed 

 or imposed, and we have no guarantee of the connection 

 of the races. There is still a disposition to see in the 



