ORIGINS OF SCIENCE IN THE ANCIENT WORLD 27 



Thus, some two thousand years before our era there 

 existed upon the shores and islands of the JEgean Sea a 

 civilization which had already attained a high level. The 

 ethnic stock of these ^Egean folk was the long-headed, dark 

 complexioned, delicately molded Mediterranean race made 

 familiar through studies upon European anthropology. 

 During the early centuries of this second millennium there 

 came from the north, by way of the Black Sea and the 

 Balkans, a flood of barbarians. It is clear from the references 

 to their stature, their blue eyes, and their tawny hair, as 

 well as from their cultural traditions and the anatomical 

 evidence derived from skeletal remains, that this invading 

 people was of the Northern European or Nordic stock. 

 Their use of the funeral pyre, as described in Homer, is one 

 custom among many which differentiates them sharply from 

 the ^Egeans. The Homeric tales are, presumably, founded 

 upon certain of their early exploits, just as the fabuluous 

 stories of King Arthur have some sort of an historical foun- 

 dation. The original Hellenes were perhaps in possession of 

 the mainland for centuries, before they learned to build 

 ships and voyage to the islands. The period of their original 

 invasion is uncertain, since they possessed no written lan- 

 guage until a much later period. But their occupation of the 

 Peloponnesus can be placed in the eleventh century B. c. 



Following the Hellenic conquests, the ^Egeans in Crete 

 and on the mainland survived in large part as a subject 

 population. In the course of centuries, the stock of the 

 original invaders, and others who doubtless followed them, 

 must have become somewhat intermingled with that of the 

 conquered ^Egeans. The Greek population some four or 

 five centuries later, at the dawn of its written history, was 

 thus of double origin. The extent to which the two elements 

 had then fused together is, of course, impossible to ascer- 

 tain. 14 It is fair to surmise that for many centuries a land- 



14 The fact that the Philistines of Biblical times are known to have orig- 

 inated from a group of Cretans, who fled before their conquerors, shows that 



