700 TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION H-. 



it fully substantiates the accounts given by Josephus about this interesting migra- 

 tion of the Jews into Egypt in the second century b.c .; and a later cemetery at 

 Gheyta shows how Eastern influence was filtering into the country before the 

 great Arab conquest. 



WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 8. 



The following Papers and Reports were read : — 



1. Early Traces of Human Types in the uEyean. 

 By John L. Mtres, M.A., F.S.A. 



In spite of the admitted imperfection of the evidence, it seems desirable to 

 attempt certain generalisations Irom our present information as to the charac- 

 teristics of early man in Greek lands ; at all events, in so far as these may limit 

 the field of profitable inquiry by ruling out hypotheses already indicated as 

 untenable. 



I. Broadly speaking, the results of recent work by Virchow, von Luschan, 

 Klon Stephanos, Duckworth, Hawes, and others show that as far back as we 

 have any evidence at all — that is, to the earlier phases of the Bronze Age — we 

 are prohibited from regarding the yEgean as populated by any purely ' Mediter- 

 ranean ' type of dolichocephalic man : brachycephalic individuals occur sporadically 

 all over the area of observation. This proof of mixed physique rules out all 

 interpretations of -^Egean culture which regard /Egean culture as the exclusive 

 production of unmixed ' Homo Mediterraneus,' or regard the so-called ' Achaean ' 

 irruptions in the centuries from 1500 to 1200 B.C. as the first occupation of ^gean 

 lands by an alien conqueror. 



II. The same data as to the presence, and (in the later Bronze Age) the 

 increasing frequency, of brachycephalic types in the ^Egeau, when compared with 

 the evidence as to the existence of very pure brachycephalic populations in the 

 highland areas east and west of the iEgean depression — i.e., in Balkan lands, and 

 in Anatolia — afford a strong probability, first, that these brachycephalic ' Alpine ' 

 populations were themselves established in these highlands at least as early as 

 the first phases of the iEgean Bronze Age ; and, secondly, that they were in com- 

 petition with dolichocephalic ' Mediterranean ' man for the possession of the sunk 

 lands of the iEgean Archipelago. Indeed, while in certain islands the earliest 

 known population is typically dolichocephalic with a mesocephalic ' margin,' in 

 others the mesocephalic -'margin' accompanies a predominantly brachycephalic 

 type. 



III. The circumstance that, as noted by Bogdanov, Sergi, and others, the 

 great lowland steppe region of South Russia, immediately adjacent to the Balkan 

 lands to the north-east, was peopled from neolithic to classical times by a pre- 

 dominantly dolichocephalic population, precludes any assumption that ' intruders 

 from the north ' into the yEgean must have been brachycephalic : especially in 

 any case in which such intruders can be shown to have retained any traces of a 

 nomad or purely pastoral mode of life. Only where evidence as to complexion is 

 available can dolichocephalic remains in the North yEgean be distinguished into a 

 probably Mediterranean and a probably intrusive group. 



IV. The circumstance, already noted, that the highland areas on either side 

 of the JEgean seem to have been occupied by brachycephalic ' Alpine ' and 

 ' Armenoid ' populations as far back as our evidence goes makes it extremely 

 improbable that the brunet dolichocephalic type which predominates in the 

 southern yEgean arrived there by any land route, either down the west coast of 

 Greece or along the south coast of Asia Minor, while its brunetness precludes 

 affiliation to the dolichocephalic types of the north. It follows that until some 

 other mode of entry is demonstrated we must regard this type as having entered 

 the ^Egean oversea from North Africa. This conclusion is strongly supported 

 by the evidence as to its distribution throughout the Bronze Age, and on into 



