History, Ancient; Human beings -- Origin; Prehistoric peoples
Taking these prominent anthropological characters as tests, we find
four distinct types among the earliest inhabitants of Europe, which
can be traced back from historic to neolithic times. They consist
of two long-headed and two short-headed races, and in each case one
is tall and the other short. The dolichocephalic are recognized
everywhere throughout Western Europe and on the Mediterranean basin,
including North Africa, as the oldest race, and they are thought
still to survive in the original type in some of the people of Wales
and Ireland and the Spanish Basques; while they doubtless form a
large portion, intermixed with other races, of the blood of the
existing populations of Great Britain and Ireland, of Western and
Southern France, of Spain, Portugal, Sicily, Sardinia, North Africa,
and other Mediterranean districts. This is known as the Iberian race,
and it can be traced clearly beyond history and the knowledge of
metals, into the neolithic stone age, and may possibly be descended
from some of the vastly older palæolithic types such as that of
Cro-Magnon. The type is everywhere a feeble one, of short stature,
dolichocephalic skull, narrow oval face, orthognathic teeth, weak
chin, and swarthy complexion. We have only to compare a skull of this
type with one of ruder and stronger races, to understand how the
latter must have survived as conquerors in the struggle for existence
in the early ages of the world, before gunpowder and military
discipline had placed civilization in a better position to contend
with brute force and energy. Huxley sums up the latest evidence as
to the distinctive types of these historic and prehistoric races of
Europe as follows--
1. Blond long-heads of tall stature who appear with least admixture
in Scandinavia, North Germany, and parts of the British Islands.
2. Brunette broad-heads of short stature in Central France, the
Central European Highlands, and Piedmont. These are identified with
the Ligurian race, and their most typical modern representatives are
the Auvergnats and Savoyards.
3. Mongoloid brunette broad-heads of short stature in Arctic and
Eastern Europe, and Central Asia, represented by the Lapps and other
tribes of Northern Russia, passing into the Mongols and Chinese of
Eastern Asia.
4. Brunette long-heads of short stature--the Iberian race.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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