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CURRENT NOTES ON ANTHROPOLOGY. - XII. 



[Edited by D. G. Brinton, M.D., LL.D.] 



Ligurians, Iberians, and Siculi. 



Professor G. Sergi occupies the chair of anthropology in 

 the University at Rome, and Professor G. Niccolucci that 

 in the University of Naples; but these two scientists of 

 eminence are far from agreeing as to the ethnic position of 

 the Ligurians, or as to the shape of their skulls. Professor 

 Niccolucci described some alleged Ligurian crania, which 

 seemed to show them to have been a round-headed people, 

 and hence, the Professor inferred, of "Turanian" origin. 

 But Professor Sergi insists that the said skulls were only 

 those of modern Modenese, and neither ancient nor Ligurian. 

 His own authentic series of Ligurian skulls proves them, on 

 the contrary, to have been long-headed, with narrow noses, 

 orthognathic, and with no similarity to Turanians; but with 

 a very close likeness to the ancient Iberian type, such as the 

 brothers Siret exhumed from the neolithic deposits of south- 

 ern Spain. What is more, in two series of neolithic skulls 

 from southern Sicily he proves that identically the same 

 peculiarities recur; so that the ancient Siculi and Secani who 

 held that region before the Greeks came, he believes to be 

 branches of one stock, and both of them out-posts of that 

 same Ligurian people who in proto-historic times occupied 

 most of the coast of the Mediterranean Sea, from the Straits 

 of Gibraltar to the tip-end of the Italian peninsula. For 

 him, Siculi, Sicani, Ligures, Iberi, as ancient ethnic names, 

 all refer to branches of the same stock ; and the cave men of 

 Mentone and the Arene Candide in Italy, and of Cro Magnon 

 in France, alike furnish us with specimens of the Ligurian 

 cranial form. His interesting essay is in the Bulletino di 

 Paletnologia Italiana, December, 1891. 



Zl The Meaning of Ethnography. 



In the first number of a new journal, Bibliotheque de 

 T Alliance Scientifique, Tome I., Fasc. I., appears what we 

 should call a " symposium " on the meaning and the objects 

 of Ethnography. The writers are Jules Oppert, Claude Ber- 



nard, Jomard, A. Castaing, Leon de Rosny, Jules Simon, D. 

 Marceron, and other well-known names. 



One perceives in most of their contributions that confusion 

 of terms which is so prevalent in France, and which is so 

 severely and justly criticised by Topinard in his last work, 

 "L,Homme dans la Nature," pp. 7. 8, 23, 24, etc. By its 

 derivation and according to its early and correct usage, 

 ethnography means a description of the actual condition of 

 a people or peoples. So it was employed by Niebuhr and 

 Campe early in the century, and so it is used to-day by 

 Gerland, Eatzel, and the other leading ethnographers outside 

 of France; and so it should be in France. A word common 

 to science should connote the same ideas everywhere. 



Jomard defines it as "the science whose final purpose is 

 to explain the progress of humanity." C A. Pret gives us 

 the terse sentence, "Ethnography is the social history of 

 humanity." Another contributor puts it, "Ethnography 

 seeks to define the laws of the moral and intellectual evolu- 

 tion of man." Carnot studies it, " to discover a solid 

 foundation for my political faith;" de Rosny, "for the 

 new lights it casts on the grand and enigmatical problem of 

 destiny." 



These are brave words, and they tell us a great deal about 

 the meaning and purpose of ethnology, but are wholly mis- 

 applied with regard to the term ethnography in its correct 

 sense, either in French or English. They illustrate the need 

 of a correct nomenclature in this science. 



The Primitive History of Mankind. 



A volume on this subject which is at once scientific and 

 popular is a decided benefit to the study of anthropology; 

 and such a one we have in Dr. Moritz Hoernes's " Die 

 Urgeschichte des Menschen nach dem heutigen Stande der 

 Wissenschaft " (Vienna, H. Hartleben, 1892). It is clearly 

 printed and abundantly illustrated, and its scope may be 

 guessed from its size — 672 large octavo pages. It takes in 

 the whole of what is now called the " pre-history " of Europe,, 

 beginning with the alleged remains of tertiary man and ex- 

 tending down to the time when history proper takes up the 

 thread of the development of the human race in that conti- 

 nent. Several chapters of an introductory character ex- 

 plain the nature and objects of pre-history, and examine 

 into what we may understand by the earliest conditions of 

 culture in the human race. 



Dr. Hoernes is not a mere book-maker, as is so often the 

 case with authors of popular scientific works, but is a promi- 

 nent member of the Anthropological Society of Vienna, and 

 a practical laborer in the vineyard of archisology. He has- 

 a right, therefore, to press some of its wine wherewith to 

 treat the general public. May they quaff deeply and become 

 intoxicated with the attractions of this new science, full of 

 promises and full of mysteries! 



Early Development of the Art-Faculty. 



The development of the art-faculty is as much an ethnic 

 as it is a personal trait. As we find among our own ac- 

 quaintances some singularly gifted in this respect, and 

 others, of equal or greater general ability, quite devoid of it, 

 so it has been with nations and tribes in all periods of cul- 

 ture. In lower stages of development it is more ethnic than, 

 personal, the individual then being less free. 



For these reasons the scepticism which has met the dis- 

 covery of free-hand drawings on horns and bones dating- 

 from palaeolithic times is not well founded. Those from the 

 caves of La Madeleine in Prance representing the mammoth 



