L. H. Dudley Buxton 
111 
Armenoids can be combated by the equally plausible, but perhaps also invalid, 
argument that these curious endogamous religious communities are the remains of 
later invaders who refused to ally themselves with the people of the land. The 
mixture of population had taken place in Cyprus — or among the inhabitants of 
Cyprus in an earlier home — before the beginning of the Bronze Age and it appears 
to have been taking place in Crete at about the same time. Elsewhere evidence 
is entirely lacking. 
It is impossible on physical grounds at present to come to any conclusions 
in regard to the nature of the Pelasgians*. In regard to the Achaeans we have 
shewn that there appears to be no good ground for suspecting the presence 
of Nordics. 
Ripley (p. 410) speaking of the classical Greeks says : " The facial features seem 
to be well demonstrated in the classic statuary although it is curious as Stephanos 
observes that these ideal heads are distinctly brachycephalic. Either the ancient 
sculptors knew little of anthropology or else we have again a confirmation of our 
assertion that however conscious of their peculiar facial traits a people may be, the 
head form is a characteristic whose significance is rarely recognized." We have 
attempted to shew that brachycephaly certainly did occur among the Greeks 
of the classical period. The small series of crania at our disposal contain both 
long-headed and short-headed types and we cannot agree with Ripley's dictum 
that the primitive Hellenic type was of pure Mediterranean stock. It is possible 
that the earliest dwellers in Greece may have been Mediterranean people — evidence 
is lacking on that point — but long before Hellenic civilization had developed the 
inhabitants of the Greek world appear, as far as our scanty data go, to have been 
similar generally to the inhabitants of that area today. 
Their further history we cannot exactly follow. We know of movements of 
peoples, of irruption of Slavs, and of Turks. It is not improbable that these late 
comers were physically akin to the people who were already in occupation. With 
the Turk and possibly before came a large admixture of Negroid elements. Exactly 
how far the population has been affected by this influence it is difficult to say, but 
it forms an interesting example of a definite introduction of alien blood in the 
population, which has up to the present not been absorbed. 
In smaller quantities and at various times, notably under the Byzantine Empire 
and during the Crusades, it is not unlikely that Nordic influence made itself felt in 
the Eastern Mediterranean but this influence cannot be detected at present. 
While admitting then the presence of numerous minor differences, sufficiently 
great to make it necessary to know the exact provenance of any anthropological 
data we may wish to examine, it would not seem possible to assign any definite 
racial position to the greater part of the people of the Eastern Mediterranean but 
* Cf. Treidler, " Alte Volker der Balkenhalbinsel," Archiv fiir Anthropologic, xl. S. 97: "In einem 
Punkte muss man Belocli recht geben die ganze thrakische Frage ist insofern belanglos als zwischen 
Tlirakern und Hellenen in physischer Beziehung kein wesentlicher Unterscliied bestanden hat." The 
same author continues : "no doubt the ' Urpelasger ' were identical witli the Thraciaus." 
