Appletons' Popular Science Monthly, May 1899: Volume LV, No. 1, May 1899Various
History
Appletons' Popular Science Monthly, May 1899: Volume LV, No. 1, May 1899
Various
Science -- Periodicals; Technology -- Periodicals
To trace any definite connection between race and civilization in
Europe is rendered extremely hazardous scientifically by reason of the
appearance along with bronze of the custom of burning instead of
burying the dead, their ashes being disposed in cinerary urns, jars,
or other receptacles. By this procedure all possible clew to the
physical type of the people is, of course, annihilated at once. It has
become almost an axiom among archæologists that bronze culture and
incineration are constant companions. Wherever one appears, the other
may confidently be looked for. Together they have long been supposed
to be the special and peculiar attributes of a new broad-headed
immigrant race from the East. To prove this conclusively is, of
course, absolutely impossible for the above-mentioned reason. Of the
two, it seems as if incineration would be a more reliable test of race
than a knowledge of bronze; for burial customs, involving as they do
the most sacred instincts and traditions of a people, would be most
persistently maintained, even throughout long-continued migrations.
The use of bronze, on the other hand, being a matter of obvious
utility, and capable of widespread dissemination commercially, is
seemingly of far less ethnic significance.
To indicate the uncertainty of proof in these matters, let us suppose
that the Hallstatt civilization, for example, is the result of an
immigration of a brachycephalic Oriental civilized race overlying a
primitive native long-headed one. That seems best to conform to the
data, which northern Italy at least affords. Suppose the new
people--call them Celts with the best authorities, if you
please--brought not only bronze and iron, but the custom of
incineration. Prior to their appearance inhumation was the rule. What
would be the result if one attempted to determine the physical
character of that people from a study of the remains in their
necropoli? All the crania to be found in the graves with the precious
objects of bronze would in no wise represent the people who brought
that bronze. They burned their bridges behind them at death, and
disappeared for good and all. And the remains left to the archæologist
would represent precisely that class in the population which had
nothing to do with the main characteristics of its civilization. And
then, again, we must bear in mind that the interments in these
necropoli as a whole, both with burned or buried dead, constitute a
selected type. Neither Hallstatt, Watsch, nor any of the burial places
of their type were open to the great mass of the common people. They
were sacred spots, far removed among the mountains from any centers of
population. Only the rich or powerful presumably had access to them.
They are no more typical of the Hallstatt people, therefore, than
interments in Westminster Abbey are representative of the English
masses. All our data are necessarily drawn from a class within a
class. Inductions from them must be very gingerly handled.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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