DISCOVERY 



219 



"Celtic"; the Valley Village ; and the Forest Village. Of 

 these three, IVIr. Peake deals at greatest length with the 

 Valley Village, which he regards as a normal type in this 

 country, the Moorland Village belonging to a more 

 primitive form which survived only in the less favourable 

 environment of a hilly and remote country, and the 

 Forest Village being a later product of special conditions. 

 The characteristics of the fulh' developed Valley Village 

 Community are common possession of meadow-land for 

 hay, arable fields cultivated in common on the three-field 

 system, and a common pasture for flocks and herds. 

 Usually, but not invariably, there is associated with the 

 Village Community an overlord, who receives tribute 

 from the members of the community, in service or kind, 

 and acts as their protector and arbiter of disputes. The 

 existence of an overlord in a social unit, which is essentially 

 democratic and communistic, is an anomaly not hitherto 

 satisfactorily explained. 



The problems wliich the author has set himself to solve 

 in the early part of liis book are firstly, " What is the 

 origin of these three types of community, and what are 

 their relations one to another ? " and, secondly, " How is it 

 possible to account for the anomalous position of the over- 

 lord ? " He has attacked these problems with a bold 

 originality which some of his readers may think borders 

 upon temerity, for in his suggested solution he has not 

 only drawn upon the results of anthropological and 

 archaeological research, but he has ventured upon the 

 more debatable ground of racial psychology. The extent 

 to which his argument is recognised as vaUd will depend 

 on the degree to wliich his readers are prepared to accept 

 not only his theory of the persistence of mental characters, 

 whether due ultimately to environmental or racial 

 influence — a matter upon which Mr. Peake appears to 

 have more or less an open mind — but also upon their 

 agreement in his analysis of the different types of 

 mentality which he associates -with the phj'sical diflerences 

 upon wliich the racial classification is made to depend by 

 the anthropologist. Although Mr. Peake's arguments 

 may go far to convince, it must be remembered that they 

 are based largely upon inference and personal impression. 

 The scientific study of the association of mental character 

 and race has far to go before the psychologist can speak 

 with the authority of the physical anthropologist. Subject 

 to this reservation it must be said that Mr. Peal;e makes 

 out a strong case. 



Only those who are acquainted with the works which 

 Mr. Peake himself has published elsewhere will appreciate 

 the originality of the summary of the ethnology of Europe 

 in general a.nd of these islands in particular upon which 

 his anthropological argument is based. In order to give 

 some idea of the force of this argument, it is necessary to 

 indicate briefly the line which has been foUowed by Mr. 

 Peake in his research. After summarising the theories 

 which at present hold the field in regard to the development 

 and relation of the different modes of life, hunting, 

 pastoral, and agricultural, of primitive man, he maintains 

 that the essential features of the agricultural form alone 

 are such as would produce the material conditions and 

 the habit of mind which, acting in combination, would be 



capable of originating and developing the Village Com- 

 munity. On cultural and psychological grounds, there- 

 fire, Mr. Peake holds that the origin of the \'iUage Com- 

 munity may, with reasonable probability, be assigned to 

 the Neolithic Lake Dwellers of Central Europe — the broad- 

 headed Alpine race — by whom agriculture was introduced 

 from Asia. As is well known, the races of Europe fall 

 into three broad groups, the long-headed Mediterranean, 

 represented in Britain by the early neolithic peoples, the 

 broad-headed Alpine, and the long-headed fair Nordic 

 peoples. To these is sometimes added a fourth group with 

 Mongoloid affinities to which Mr. Peake, with adequate 

 reason, is inclined to attribute more importance than most 

 writers. Any problem, however, wliich depends for its 

 solution upon the evidence afforded by racial characters is 

 complicated by the fact that contact and admixture be- 

 tween these groups of peoples have produced intermediate 

 \-arieties wliich have sufficient permanence to be regarded 

 as sub-types. It is to one of these, the group of broad- 

 headed peoples known as the Beaker-folk, who arrived 

 on the east coasts of these islands a little before the intro- 

 duction of bronze, that BIr. Peake would mainly assign the 

 origin of the Moorland Village. The Beaker-folk he holds 

 to be the result of contact between Nordic nomad pastorals 

 and Alpines. About 1250 B.C. the Nordic tribes who 

 inhabited the Russian steppes spread over the greater 

 part of Europe, conquering the agricultural people whom 

 they encountered and ruling over them as a military caste. 

 The course of their wanderings, which extended to Great 

 Britain and Ireland, has been traced by Mr. Peake by 

 means of finds of their characteristic leaf-shaped swords, 

 while the number of bronze sickles found in France and in 

 tlus country have suggested to him that the Nordic 

 conquerors brought with them as their subjects and 

 followers a considerable number of the broad-headed 

 agriculturists of Central Europe. On settUng in this 

 country, they founded a Village Community of the type 

 with which they were familiar on the Continent in the 

 form of the Valley Community on the tliree-field system, 

 tlie Nordic leader developing into the viUage overlord. 



The Forest Village, on the other hand, with its one or 

 two-field system, Mr. Peake regards as a special product 

 of the conditions which followed on the Anglo-Saxon 

 invasion. As has been seen, he does not agree that the 

 Anglo-Saxons originated the Village Community, as has 

 sometimes been thought. He holds that they found it 

 already in existence and adopted it, but were responsible 

 for the Forest Village as a later off-shoot on the model of 

 the one-field system of their home in North Germany. 



Tliis brief and inadequate summary must suffice to 

 indicate the trend and quality of the author's line of 

 reasoning ; nor is it possible to deal with his account of 

 the development of the Village Community in mediaeval 

 times and its gradual decline and extinction. In this he 

 is on more familiar ground. His forecast in the final 

 chapter of a possible rebirth of the Village Community 

 suggests a comparison and a contrast with Mr. MacGarr's 

 careful study of the Rural Community in America, where, 

 notwithstanding the difference of conditions, the problems 

 to be faced are fundamentally the same. Their solution. 



