60 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY, 



eral law, that the severity of climate and poverty of environment 

 in mountainous districts exert a depressing influence upon stature, 

 the Bavarian Alps and the Bohmerwald contain a population dis- 

 tinctly above the general average in the great plateau south of 

 Regensburg. (See map of physical geography.) This is all the 

 more extraordinary, since these mountaineers are Alpinely broad- 

 headed and relatively brunette to an extreme. It would be a highly 

 discouraging combination did we not remember that the great Ba- 

 varian plateau is itself of considerable altitude; even then one is 

 led to suspect that some process of selection has been at work to 

 compass such a result. For if we turn to the Black Forest, we 

 there find our racial law holds good. Wolfach, from which our 

 portrait type was taken, exemplifies it completely. Here, on 

 the high plateau known as Die Baar, the average stature falls 

 below Hve feet four inches, the lowest recorded, I believe, in the 

 empire. 



Two great events in the history of northern Europe have pro- 

 found significance for the anthropologist. The first is the marvelous 

 expansion of the Germans, about the time of the fall of Rome; the 

 second is the corresponding immigration of Slavic hordes from the 

 east. Both of these were potent enough to leave results persistent 

 to this day. 



We know nothing of the German tribes until about 100 b. c. 

 Suddenly they loom up in the north, aggressive foes of the Romans. 

 For some time they were held in check by the stubborn resistance 

 of the legions, until finally, when the restraining hand of Rome was 

 withdrawn, they spread all over western Europe in the fourth and 

 fifth centuries of our era. Such are the well-known historic facts. 

 Let us see what archaeology may add to them. The first investi- 

 gators of ancient burial grounds in southern Germany unearthed 

 two distinct types of skulls. The round-headed variety was quite 

 like that of the modern peasantry roundabout. The other dolicho- 

 cephalic type was less frequent, but strongly marked in places. An 

 additional feature of these latter was noted at once. They were 

 generally found in burial places of a peculiar kind. An easterly 

 sloping hill was especially preferred, on which the skeletons lay feet 

 toward the rising sun probably a matter of religious importance. 

 The bodies were also regularly disposed in long rows, side by side, 

 a circumstance which led Ecker to term them Reihengraber, or row- 

 graves. Other archaeologists, by a study of the personal effects in 

 the graves, succeeded in identifying these people with the tall, 

 blond Teutonic invaders from the north. Such graves are found 

 all through Germany as far north as Thuringia. They bear wit- 



