THE RACIAL GEOGRAPHY OF EUROPE. 735 



the Etruscan to the Greek is by them held to be very close.* 

 Much evidence is favorable to either side. To us it seems that 

 Deecke is more nearly correct than either. He holds it to be 

 probable that both centers of civilization contributed to the com- 

 mon product. In his opinion the Etruscans were crossed of the 

 Tyrrhenians from Asia Minor and the Raseni from the Alps. 

 All these views, it will be noted, concern civilization mainly. It is 

 now time for us to examine the purely physical data at our dis- 

 position. Even supposing their culture to have been an immi- 

 grant from abroad, that need not imply a foreign ethnic deriva- 

 tion for the people themselves. 



Inspection of our maps, in so far as they concern Etruria, con- 

 vinces one that if the Etruscans were of entirely extra- Italian 

 origin, their descendants have at the present time completely 

 merged their identity in that of their neighbors ; for no sudden 

 transitions are anywhere apparent, either in respect of head form, 

 stature, or pigmentation. On the whole, the trend of testimony 

 appears to favor the German theory that the Etruscans made a 

 descent upon Italy from the north ; and that they were derived 

 from the Rhsetians, racial ancestors of the modern Swiss and 

 other Alpine peoples. Thus it will be observed that Tuscany 

 allies itself in head form to the north rather than the south. 

 Especially is this brachycephaly noticeable about Bologna, just 

 over the Apennines in Emilia. In this region, especially about 

 Bologna, many of the richest archaeological finds of Etruscan 

 remains have been made. There appears to be a sort of wedge of 

 broad-headedness penetrating the peninsula nearly as far south as 

 Rome. This could not be if the Etruscans had been ethnically of 

 Greek or Semitic origin ; for the Greeks were and are of a type 

 quite similar to the Italians of the extreme south of Mediterra- 

 nean racial descent, in fact. Certainly no ethnic type of this kind 

 has contributed largely to make up the modern Tuscan people, f 



To us it appears as if here, in the case of the Etruscans as of 

 the Teutonic immigrants, we find reason to suspect that the ethnic 

 importance of the invasion has been immensely overrated by his- 

 torians and philologists. It seems quite probable that the Etruscan 

 culture and language may have been determined by the decided 

 impetus of a compact conquering class ; and that the peasantry or 

 lower orders of population remained quite undisturbed. It is 

 certain that the remains of the people unearthed in their tombs 

 betray very mixed characteristics. Crania are very rare, owing 



* The Italians range themselves on this side viz., Brizio, Nicolucci, Lombroso, Sergi, 

 and Zampa. With them stand Brinton, Evans, Lefevre, Montelius, and Myres, with Hoch- 

 stetter in his later work. 



f On the Greeks vide Zampa's Anthropologie Illyrienne, in Revue d'Anthropologie, 

 series 3, i, pp. 632 seq., and Weisbach in Mitt. Anth. Ges. in Wien, xi, pp. 72 seq. 



