OUR ARYAN FOREFATHERS 



stranger might well be excused for considering 

 them as marks of difference in race. In popula- 

 tions that have long been stationary and isolated 

 from foreign intrusion we do not find such dif- 

 ferences of complexion. We do not find them 

 in China or Japan, or among the Samoyeds, or 

 Kafirs, or Pacific islanders, or among the Arabs. 

 It appears to be only among the Indo-European 

 nations that they occur side by side in the same 

 community, as an every-day matter. Now we 

 may account for this coexistence and intermin- 

 gling of contrasted complexions by supposing 

 that the various peoples of Europe have arisen 

 from the intermixing in various proportions of 

 a race that was entirely blonde with a race that 

 was entirely brunette. We know that the Bask 

 or Iberian race, which once seems to have pos- 

 sessed a great part of Europe, was, and still is, 

 uniformly dark complexioned. We may, ac- 

 cordingly, suppose that the Aryan-speaking in- 

 vaders were uniformly light. The effect of the 

 earlier invasions of Kelts, Italians, and Greeks 

 would be to crowd the dark-skinned Iberians 

 into the three southern peninsulas, into western 

 Gaul, and into the British Isles. The next step 

 would be the conquest of all these regions, 

 followed by extensive intermarriage and the 

 general adoption of Aryan speech. In the re- 

 motest corner of all, cooped up between the 

 Pyrenees and the Bay of Biscay, here, if any- 

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