ORIGINES OF EUSSIA. 



195 



fifths of the empire, and have overflowed into Siberia, Turkestan, and Caucasia. 

 But such a racial expansion could scarcely take place in the course of nine 

 hundred years without intimate fusion between the new arrivals and the old 

 inhabitants of the land. 



In classic times all the lowland populations were collectively known as 

 Scythians or Sarmatians. But amongst those aborigines it is difficult now to say 

 who were the progenitors of the present Slavs ; that is, the " speakers," as the 

 word is interpreted. Aided by such rare documents as the Greek historians have 

 left us, Ossolinski, Shafarik, and Wocel have traced the earliest home of the Slavs 



Fie:. 94. — Distribution of the Slavs in the Ninth Century. 



C of P 



E of G 



Lithuanians 



Turks. 



to Volhynia and White Russia, and here the Slav stock is supposed to be still 

 preserved in the greatest purity. The sterility of the land and the numerous 

 marshes diverted the invader to the north and south of this region. At the same 

 time there is nothing improbable in the opinion of those who also find the 

 ancestors of the Russians in certain peoples of South Scythia. The human 

 remains found in the old mounds (kûrgani) and under the site of the fortified 

 enclosures (gorodislttcha) in the governments of Chernigov, Kiev, Pskov, Novgorod, 

 and even St. Petersburg, are associated with objects implying a rudimentary cul- 

 ture which, from the .shape of the crania, has been referred to the Slav race. The 



