The passing of the great race; or, The racial basis of European historyGrant, Madison
History
The passing of the great race; or, The racial basis of European history
Grant, Madison
Ethnology -- Europe
So far as we know this Mediterranean type never existed in Scandinavia
and all brunet elements found there can be attributed to introductions
in the Bronze Age or in historic times. Nor did the Mediterranean race
ever enter or cross the high Alps as did the Nordics at a much later
date on their way to the Mediterranean basin from the Baltic coasts.
The Mediterranean race with its Asiatic extensions is bordered
everywhere on the north of its enormous range from Spain to India by
round skulls but there does not seem to be as much evidence of mixture
between these two subspecies of man as there is between the Alpines and
the Nordics.
Along its southern boundary the Mediterraneans are in contact with
either the long skulled Negroes of Africa or the ancient Negrito
population of southern Asia. In Africa this race has drifted southward
over the Sahara and up the Nile Valley and has modified the blood of the
Negroes in both the Senegambian and equatorial regions.
Beyond these mixtures of blood, there is absolutely no relationship
between the Mediterranean race and the Negroes. The fact that the
Mediterranean race is long skulled as well as the Negro does not
indicate relationship as has been suggested. An overemphasis of the
importance of the skull shape as a somatological character can easily
mislead and characters other than skull proportions must be carefully
considered in determining race.
From a zoological point of view Africa north of the Sahara is now and
has been since early Tertiary times a part of Europe. This is true both
of animals and of the races of man. The Berbers of north Africa to-day
are racially identical with the Spaniards and south Italians while the
ancient Egyptians and their modern descendants, the fellaheen, are
merely well-marked varieties of this Mediterranean race.
The Egyptians fade off toward the west into the so-called Hamitic
peoples (to use an obsolete name) of Libya, and toward the south the
infusion of Negro blood becomes increasingly great until we finally
reach the pure Negro. On the east in Arabia we find an ancient and
highly specialized subdivision of the Mediterranean race, which has from
time out of mind crossed the Red Sea and infused its blood into the
Negroes of east Africa.
To-day the Mediterranean race forms in Europe a substantial part of the
population of the British Isles, the great bulk of the population of the
Iberian Peninsula, nearly one-third of the population of France,
Liguria, Italy south of the Apennines and all the Mediterranean coasts
and islands, in some of which like Sardinia it exists in great purity.
It forms the substratum of the population of Greece and of the eastern
coast of the Balkan Peninsula. Everywhere in the interior of the Balkan
Peninsula, except in eastern Bulgaria and parts of Rumania, it has been
replaced by the South Slavs and by the Albanians, the latter a mixture
of the ancient Illyrians and the Slavs.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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