ANTHROPOLOGY OF ASIA 3.1 



branch which went towards the west, more probably than 

 the other, must have absorbed Proto-semitic populations. 1 



To the branch pushing towards the west we assign the 

 Mitanni, probably related to the Hittites, according 

 to Charles, who holds the Mitanni to be a Hittite 

 people, 2 but the Hittites must have chronologically 

 preceded them. The opinion of Sod erbium, seems to us 

 absolutely fantastic : he believes that the Hittites came from 

 the coast of the Baltic, which coincides with Moul ton's 

 opinion 5 that the Aryans came to India across Russia. 

 The crossing of the Caucasus by the Hindus towards 

 I7v B. C. is accepted also by Hiising in accordance with 

 the theory of the European origin of the Aryans, which 

 does not appear to us now any more convincing. 1 We 

 prefer the hypothesis of the bifurcation in Iran. 



At the centre remained the ancestors (pro partc !)of the 

 present Tajiks, of whom Khanikoff speaks as "the aborigines 

 of the Persian race, Avho have been able to preserve their 

 language and some traces of an ancient civilisation. " 5 

 We have already seen that the Tajiks present the highest 

 percentage of blondes in the whole of Asia. We add 

 that the Nordic representatives in western Turkestan 

 also appear far from the area of their origin : this distance 

 serves to explain a fact noted by Ujfalvy, namely, that 



1 The Jews were vassals or mercenaries in the service of the Hittitebs, according 

 to CLAY (The Empire of Amor lies, New Haven, 1919), who believes that the Arab 

 nations came originally from the North like the other Whites. The most ancient of 

 these nations was already on the Middle Euphrates in the IV millennium B. C. 



2 Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethic*, VI. 723o. 



3 MOULTOX (J. H.), Early Zoroastrianism, p. r>. 



* The Asiatic origin of the Aryans has returned manifestly in favour, since it 

 has been held by E. MEYEA (Zeitschr. f. vgl. Sprachwiss. XTII, p. 16) that the Aryans 

 remained in the region east of the Aral and Caspian until about 2000 B. C., 

 and after that time began to make their way eastwards into India and south- 

 westwards. 



5 KHAMKOFF, Menwire ?ur V Ethnographic de la Pertc, Paris, 1806, pp. 90, 92. 



