CHAPTER II

THE METAL AGES--HISTORIC TIMES AND PEOPLES

Progress of Archaeological Studies--Sequence of the Metal Ages--The Copper Age--Egypt, Elam, Babylonia, Europe--The Bronze Age--Egypt and Babylonia, Western Europe, the Aegean, Ireland--Chronology of the Copper and Bronze Ages--The Iron Age--Hallstatt, La Tene--Man and his Works in the Metal Ages--The Prehistoric Age in the West, and in China--Historic Times--Evolution of Writing Systems-- Hieroglyphs and Cuneiforms--The Alphabet--The Persian and other Cuneiform Scripts--The Mas-d'Azil Markings--Alphabetiform Signs on Neolithic Monuments--Character and Consequences of the later historic Migrations--The Race merges in the People--The distinguishing Characters of Peoples--Scheme of Classification.

If, as above seen, the study of human origins is largely a geological problem, the investigation of the later developments, during the Metal Ages and prehistoric times, belongs mainly to the field of Archaeology. Hence it is that for the light which has in recent years been thrown upon the obscure interval between the Stone Ages and the strictly historic epoch, that is to say, the period when in his continuous upward development man gradually exchanged stone for the more serviceable metals, we are indebted chiefly to the pioneer labours of such men as Worsaae, Steenstrup, Forchhammer, Schliemann, Sayce, Layard, Lepsius, Mariette, Maspero, Montelius, Brugsch, Petrie, Peters, Haynes, Sir J. Evans, Sir A. J. Evans and many others, all archaeologists first, and anthropologists only in the second instance.

From the researches of these investigators it is now clear that copper, bronze, and iron were successively in use in Europe in the order named, so that the current expressions, "Copper," "Bronze," and "Iron" Ages remain still justified. But it also appears that overlappings, already beginning in late Neolithic times, were everywhere so frequent that in many localities it is quite impossible to draw any well-marked dividing lines between the successive metal periods.

That iron came last, a fact already known by vague tradition to the ancients[66], is beyond doubt, and it is no less certain that bronze of various types intervened between copper and iron. But much obscurity still surrounds the question of copper, which occurs in so many graves of Neolithic and Bronze times, that this metal has even been denied an independent position in the sequence.

But we shall not be surprised that confusion should prevail on this point, if we reflect that the metals, unlike stone, came to remain. Once introduced they were soon found to be indispensable to civilised man, so that in a sense the "Metal Ages" still survive, and must last to the end of time. Hence it was natural that copper should be found in prehistoric graves associated, first with polished stone implements, and then with bronze and iron, just as, since the arrival of the English in Australia, spoons, clay pipes, penknives, pannikins, and the like, are now found mingled with stone objects in the graves of the aborigines.

But that there was a true Copper Age[67] prior to that of Bronze, though possibly of not very long duration, except of course in the New World[68], has been placed beyond reasonable doubt by recent investigations. Considerable attention was devoted to the subject by J. H. Gladstone, who finds that copper was worked by the Egyptians in the Sinaitic Peninsula, that is, in the famous mines of the Wadi Maghara, from the fourth to the eighteenth dynasty, perhaps from 3000 to 1580 B.C.[69] During that epoch tools were made of pure copper in Egypt and Syria, and by the Amorites in Palestine, often on the model of their stone prototypes[70].

Elliot Smith[71] claims that "the full story of the coming of copper, complete in every detail and circumstance, written in a simple and convincing fashion that he who runs may read," has been displayed in Egypt ever since the year 1894, though the full significance of the evidence was not recognised until Reisner called attention to the record of pre-dynastic graves in Upper Egypt when superintending the excavations at Naga-ed-der in 1908[72]. These excavations revealed the indigenous civilisation of the ancient Egyptians and, according to Elliot Smith, dispose of the idea hitherto held by most archaeologists that Egypt owed her knowledge of metals to Babylonia or some other Asiatic source, where copper, and possibly also bronze, may be traced back to the fourth millennium B.C. There was doubtless intercourse between the civilisations of Egypt and Babylonia but "Reisner has revealed the complete absence of any evidence to show or even to suggest that the language, the mode of writing, the knowledge of copper ... were imported" (p. 34). Elliot Smith justly claims (p. 6) that in no other country has a similarly complete history of the discovery and the evolution of the working of copper been revealed, but until equally exhaustive excavations have been undertaken on contemporary or earlier sites in Sumer and Elam, the question cannot be regarded as settled.

The work of J. de Morgan at Susa[73] (1907-8) shows the extreme antiquity of the Copper Age in ancient Elam, even if his estimate of 5000 B.C. is regarded as a millennium too early[74]. At the base of the mound on the natural soil, beneath 24 meters of archaeological layers, were the remains of a town and a necropolis consisting of about 1000 tombs. Those of the men contained copper axes of primitive type; those of the women, little vases of paint, together with discs of polished copper to serve as mirrors. At Fara, excavations by Koldewey in 1902, and by Andrae and Noeldeke in 1903 on the site of Shuruppak (the home of the Babylonian Noah) in the valley of the Lower Euphrates, revealed graves attributed to the prehistoric Sumerians, containing copper spear heads, axes and drinking vessels[75].

In Europe, North Italy, Hungary and Ireland[76] may lay claim to a Copper Age, but there is very little evidence of such a stage in Britain. To this period also may be attributed the nest or _cache_ of pure copper ingots found at Tourc'h, west of the Aven Valley, Finisterre, described by M. de Villiers du Terrage, and comprising 23 pieces, with a total weight of nearly 50 lbs.[77] These objects, which belong to "the transitional period when copper was used at first concurrently with polished stone, and then disappeared as bronze came into more general use[78]," came probably from Hungary, at that time apparently the chief source of this metal for most parts of Europe. Of over 200 copper objects described by Mathaeus Much[79] nearly all were of Hungarian or South German _provenance_, five only being accredited to Britain and eight to France.

The study of this subject has been greatly advanced by J. Hampel, who holds on solid grounds that in some regions, especially Hungary, copper played a dominant part for many centuries, and is undoubtedly the characteristic metal of a distinct culture. His conclusions are based on the study of about 500 copper objects found in Hungary and preserved in the Buda Pesth collections. Reviewing all the facts attesting a Copper Age in Central Europe, Egypt, Italy, Cyprus, Troy, Scandinavia, North Asia, and other lands, he concludes that a Copper Age may have sprung up independently wherever the ore was found, as in the Ural and Altai Mountains, Italy, Spain, Britain, Cyprus, Sinai; such culture being generally indigenous, and giving evidence of more or less characteristic local features[80]. In fact we know for certain that such an independent Copper Age was developed not only in the region of the Great Lakes of North America, but also amongst the Bantu peoples of Katanga and other parts of Central Africa. Copper is not an alloy like bronze, but a soft, easily-worked metal occurring in large quantities and in a tolerably pure state near the surface in many parts of the world. The wonder is, not that it should have been found and worked at a somewhat remote epoch in several different centres, but that its use should have been so soon superseded in so many places by the bronze alloys.

From copper to bronze, however, the passage was slow and progressive, the proper proportion of tin, which was probably preceded in some places by an alloy of antimony, having been apparently arrived at by repeated experiments often carried out with no little skill by those prehistoric metallurgists.

As suggested by Bibra in 1869, the ores of different metals would appear to have been at first smelted together empirically, and the process continued until satisfactory results were obtained. Hence the extraordinary number of metals, of which percentages are found in some of the earlier specimens, such as those of the Elbing Museum, which on analysis yielded tin, lead, silver, iron, antimony, arsenic, sulphur, nickel, cobalt, and zinc in varying quantities[81].

Some bronzes from the pyramid of Medum analysed by J. H. Gladstone[82] yielded the high percentage of 9.1 of tin, from which we must infer, not only that bronze, but bronze of the finest quality, was already known to the Egyptians of the fourth dynasty, _i.e._ 2840 B.C. The statuette of Gudea of Lagash (2500 B.C.) claimed as the earliest example of bronze in Babylonia is now known to be pure copper, and though objects from Tello (Lagash) of earlier date contain a mixture of tin, zinc, arsenic and other alloys, the proportion is insignificant. The question of priority must, however, be left open until the relative chronology of Egypt and Babylonia is finally settled, and this is still a much disputed point[83]. Neither would all the difficulties with regard to the origin of bronze be cleared up should Egypt or Babylonia establish her claim to possess the earliest example of the metal, for neither country appears to possess any tin. The nearest deposit known in ancient times would seem to be that of Drangiana, mentioned by Strabo, identified with modern Khorassan[84].

Strabo and other classical writers also mention the occurrence of tin in the west, in Spain, Portugal and the Cassiterides or tin islands, whose identity has given rise to so much speculation[85], but "though in after times Egypt drew her tin from Europe it would be bold indeed to suppose that she did so [in 3000 B.C.] and still bolder to maintain that she learned from northern people how to make the alloy called bronze[86]." Apart from the indigenous Egyptian origin maintained by Elliot Smith (above) the hypothesis offering fewest difficulties is that the earliest bronze is to be traced to the region of Elam, and that the knowledge spread from S. Chaldaea (Elam-Sumer) to S. Egypt in the third millennium B.C.[87]

There seems to be little doubt that the Aegean was the centre of dispersal for the new metals throughout the Mediterranean area, and copper ingots have been found at various points of the Mediterranean, marked with Cretan signs[88]. Bronze was known in Crete before 2000 B.C. for a bronze dagger and spear head were found at Hagios Onuphrios, near Phaistos, with seals resembling those of the sixth to eleventh dynasties[89].

From the eastern Mediterranean the knowledge spread during the second millennium along the ordinary trade routes which had long been in use. The mineral ores of Spain were exploited in pre-Mycenean times and probably contributed in no small measure to the industrial development of southern Europe. From tribe to tribe, along the Atlantic coasts the traffic in minerals reached the British Isles, where the rich ores were discovered which, in their turn, supplied the markets of the north, the west and the south.

Even Ireland was not left untouched by Aegean influence, which reached it, according to G. Coffey[90], by way of the Danube and the Elbe, and thence by way of Scandinavia, though this is a matter on which there is much difference of opinion. Ireland's richness in gold during the Bronze Age made her "a kind of El Dorado of the western world," and the discovery of a gold torc found by Schliemann in the royal treasury in the second city of Troy raises the question as to whether the model of the torc was imported into Ireland from the south[90], or whether (which J. Dechelette[91] regards as less probable) there was already an exportation of Irish gold to the eastern Mediterranean in pre-Mycenean times.

Of recent years great strides have been made towards the establishment of a definite chronology linking the historic with the prehistoric periods in the Aegean, in Egypt and in Babylonia, and as the estimates of various authorities differ sometimes by a thousand years or so, the subjoined table will be of use to indicate the chronological schemes most commonly followed; the dates are in all cases merely approximate.

It has often been pointed out that there is no reason why iron should not have been the earliest metal to be used by man. Its ores are more abundant and more easily reduced than any others, and are worked by peoples in a low grade of culture at the present day[92]. Iron may have been known in Egypt almost as early as bronze, for a piece in the British Museum is attributed to the fourth dynasty, and some beads of manufactured iron were found in a pre-dynastic grave at El Gerzeh[93]. But these and other less well authenticated occurrences of iron are rare, and the metal was not common in Egypt before the middle of the second millennium. By the end of the second millennium the knowledge had spread throughout the eastern Mediterranean[94], and towards 900 at latest iron was in common use in Italy and Central Europe.

CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE.

Egypt[95] Babylonia[96] Aegean[97] Greece[98] Bronze Age in Europe[99]

3300 Dynasty I 3200 3100 3000 Dynasty of Opis ?Early ?Pre-Mycenean 2900 Dyn. of Kish Minoan I 2800 Dyn. III, Dyn. of Erech IV Dyn. of Akkad[100] 2700 2600 Dyn. V 2nd Dyn. of Erech 2500 Dyn. VI Gutian Early Minoan II Period I. Domination Eneolithic 2400 Dyn. of Ur (implements 2300 Dyn. IX of stone, 2200 Dyn. of Isin Middle Minoan I copper and 2100 Dyn. XI Mid. Minoan II bronze, poor 2000 Dyn. XII 1st Dyn. Babylon Mycenean I in tin) 1900 2nd Dyn. Mid. Minoan III Period II 1800 1700 Dyn. XIII 3rd Dyn. Late Minoan I 1600 Dyn. XV Period III 1500 Dyn. XVIII Late Minoan Mycenean II II 1400 Late Minoan III 1300 Dyn. XIX Period IV 1200 Dyn. XX Homeric Age 1100 4th Dyn. 1000 Dyn. XXI 5th to 7th Dyn. Close of Bronze Age[101] 900 Dyn. XXII 8th Dyn. Hallstatt

The introduction of iron into Italy has often been attributed to the Etruscans, who were thought to have brought the knowledge from Lydia. But the most abundant remains of the Early Iron Age are found not in Tuscany, but along the coasts of the Adriatic[102], showing that iron followed the well-known route of the amber trade, thus reaching Central Europe and _Hallstatt_ (which has given its name to the Early Iron Age), where alone in Europe the gradual transition from the use of bronze to that of iron has been clearly traced. W. Ridgeway[103] believes that the use of iron was first discovered in the Hallstatt area and that thence it spread to Switzerland, France, Spain, Italy, Greece, the Aegean area, and Egypt rather than that the culture drift was in the opposite direction. There is no difference of opinion however as to the importance of this Central European area which contained the most famous iron mines of antiquity. Hallstatt culture extended from the Iberian peninsula in the west to Hungary in the east, but scarcely reached Scandinavia, North Germany, Armorica or the British Isles where the Bronze Age may be said to have lasted down to about 500 B.C. Over such a vast domain the culture was not everywhere of a uniform type and Hoernes[104] recognises four geographical divisions distinguished mainly by pottery and fibulae, and provisionally classified as Illyrian in the South West, or Adriatic region, in touch with Greece and Italy; Celtic in the Central or Danubian area; with an off-shoot in Western Germany, Northern Switzerland and Eastern France; and Germanic in parts of Germany, Bohemia, Moravia, Silesia and Posen.

The Hallstatt period ends, roughly, at 500 B.C., and the Later Iron Age takes its name from the settlement of _La Tene_, in a bay of the Lake of Neuchatel in Switzerland. This culture, while owing much to that of Hallstatt, and much also to foreign sources, possesses a distinct individuality, and though soon overpowered on the Continent by Roman influence, attained a remarkable brilliance in the Late Celtic period in the British Isles.

That the peoples of the Metal Ages were physically well developed, and in a great part of Europe and Asia already of Aryan speech, there can be no reasonable doubt. A skull of the early Hallstatt period, from a grave near Wildenroth, Upper Bavaria, is described by Virchow as long-headed, with a cranial capacity of no less than 1585 c.c., strongly developed occiput, very high and narrow face and nose, and in every respect a superb specimen of the regular-featured, long-headed North European[105]. But owing to the prevalence of cremation the evidence of race is inadequate. The Hallstatt population was undoubtedly mixed, and at Glasinatz in Bosnia, another site of Hallstatt civilisation, about a quarter of the skulls examined were brachycephalic[106].

Their works, found in great abundance in the graves, especially of the Bronze and Iron periods, but a detailed account of which belongs to the province of archaeology, interest us in many ways. The painted earthenware vases and incised metal-ware of all kinds enable the student to follow the progress of the arts of design and ornamentation in their upward development from the first tentative efforts of the prehistoric artist at pleasing effects. Human and animal figures, though rarely depicted, occasionally afford a curious insight into the customs and fashions of the times. On a clay vessel, found in 1896 at Lahse in Posen, is figured a regular hunting scene, where we see men mounted on horseback, or else on foot, armed with bow and arrow, pursuing the quarry (nobly-antlered stags), and returning to the penthouse after the chase[107]. The drawing is extremely primitive, but on that account all the more instructive, showing in connection with analogous representations on contemporary objects, how in prehistoric art such figures tend to become conventionalised and purely ornamental, as in similar designs on the vases and textiles from the Ancon Necropolis, Peru. "Most ornaments of primitive peoples, although to our eye they may seem merely geometrical and freely-invented designs, are in reality nothing more than degraded animal and human figures[108]."

This may perhaps be the reason why so many of the drawings of the metal period appear so inferior to those of the cave-dwellers and of the present Bushmen. They are often mere conventionalised reductions of pictorial prototypes, comparable, for instance, to the characters of our alphabets, which are known to be degraded forms of earlier pictographs.

Of the so-called "Prehistoric Age" it is obvious that no strict definition can be given. It comprises in a general way that vague period prior to all written records, dim memories of which--popular myths, folklore, demi-gods[109], eponymous heroes[110], traditions of real events[111]--lingered on far into historic times, and supplied ready to hand the copious materials afterwards worked up by the early poets, founders of new religions, and later legislators.

That letters themselves, although not brought into general use, had already been invented, is evident from the mere fact that all memory of their introduction beyond the vaguest traditions had died out before the dawn of history. The works of man, while in themselves necessarily continuous, stretched back to such an inconceivably remote past, that even the great landmarks in the evolution of human progress had long been forgotten by later generations.

And so it was everywhere, in the New World as in the Old, amongst Eastern as amongst Western Peoples. In the Chinese records the "Age of the Five Emperors"--five, though nine are named--answers somewhat to our prehistoric epoch. It had its eponymous hero, Fu Hi, reputed founder of the empire, who invented nets and snares for fishing and hunting, and taught his people how to rear domestic animals. To him also is ascribed the institution of marriage, and in his time Tsong Chi is supposed to have invented the Chinese characters, symbols, not of sounds, but of objects and ideas.

Then came other benevolent rulers, who taught the people agriculture, established markets for the sale of farm produce, discovered the medicinal properties of plants, wrote treatises on diseases and their remedies, studied astrology and astronomy, and appointed "the Five Observers of the heavenly bodies."

But this epoch had been preceded by the "Age of the Three [six] Rulers," when people lived in caves, ate wild fruits and uncooked food, drank the blood of animals and wore the skins of wild beasts (our Old Stone Age). Later they grew less rude, learned to obtain fire by friction, and built themselves habitations of wood or foliage (our Early Neolithic Age). Thus is everywhere revealed the background of sheer savagery, which lies behind all human culture, while the "Golden Age" of the poets fades with the "Hesperides" and Plato's "Atlantis" into the region of the fabulous.

Little need here be said of strictly historic times, the most characteristic feature of which is perhaps the general use of letters. By means of this most fruitful of human inventions, everything worth preserving was perpetuated, and thus all useful knowledge tended to become accumulative. It is no longer possible to say when or where the miracle was wrought by which the apparently multifarious sounds of fully-developed languages were exhaustively analysed and effectively expressed by a score or so of arbitrary signs. But a comparative study of the various writing-systems in use in different parts of the world has revealed the process by which the transition was gradually brought about from rude pictorial representations of objects to purely phonetical symbols.

As is clearly shown by the "winter counts" of the North American aborigines, and by the prehistoric rock carvings in Upper Egypt, the first step was a _pictograph_, the actual figure, say, of a man, standing for a given man, and then for any man or human being. Then this figure, more or less reduced or conventionalised, served to indicate not only the term _man_, but the full sound _man_, as in the word _manifest_, and in the modern rebus. At this stage it becomes a _phonogram_, or _phonoglyph_, which, when further reduced beyond all recognition of its original form, may stand for the syllable _ma_ as in _ma-ny_, without any further reference either to the idea or the sound man. The phonogram has now become the symbol of a monosyllable, which is normally made up of two elements, a consonant and a vowel, as in the Devanagari, and other syllabic systems.

Lastly, by dropping the second or vowel element the same symbol, further modified or not, becomes a _letter_ representing the sound _m_, that is, one of the few ultimate elements of articulate speech. A more or less complete set of such characters, thus worn down in form and meaning, will then be available for indicating more or less completely all the phonetic elements of any given language. It will be a true _alphabet_, the wonderful nature of which may be inferred from the fact that only two, or possibly three, such alphabetic systems are known with absolute certainty to have ever been independently evolved by human ingenuity[112]. From the above exposition we see how inevitably the Phoenician parent of nearly all late alphabets expressed at first the consonantal sounds only, so that the vowels or vowel marks are in all cases later developments, as in Hebrew, Syriac, Arabic, Greek, the Italic group, and the Runes.

In primitive systems, such as the Egyptian, Sumerian, Chinese, Maya-Quiche and Mexican, one or more of the various transitional steps may be developed and used simultaneously, with a constant tendency to advance on the lines above indicated, by gradual substitution of the later for the earlier stages. A comparison of the Sumerian cuneiform and Egyptian hieroglyphic systems brings out some curious results. Thus at an extremely remote epoch, some millenniums ago, the Sumerians had already got rid of the pictorial, and to a great extent of the ideographic, but had barely reached the alphabetic phase. Consequently their cuneiform groups, although possessing phonetic value, mainly express full syllables, scarcely ever letters, and rarely complete words. Ideographs had given place first to phonograms and then to mere syllables, "complex syllables in which several consonants may be distinguished, or simple syllables composed of only one consonant and one vowel or _vice versa_[113]."

The Egyptians, on the other hand, carried the system right through the whole gamut from pictures to letters, but retained all the intermediate phases, the initial tending to fall away, the final to expand, while the bulk of the hieroglyphs represented in various degrees the several transitional states. In many cases they "had kept only one part of the syllable, namely a mute consonant; they detached, for instance, the final _u_ from _bu_ and _pu_, and gave only the values _b_ and _p_ to the human leg [Hieroglyph Symbol] and to the mat [Hieroglyph Symbol]. The peoples of the Euphrates stopped half way, and admitted actual letters for the vowel sounds _a_, _i_ and _u_ only[114]."

In the process of evolution, metaphor and analogy of course played a large part, as in the evolution of language itself. Thus a lion might stand both for the animal and for courage, and so on. The first essays in phonetics took somewhat the form of a modern rebus, thus: [Hieroglyph Symbol] = _khau_ = sieve, [Hieroglyph Symbol] = _pu_ = mat; [Hieroglyph Symbol] = _ru_ = mouth, whence [Hieroglyph Symbol] = _kho-pi-ru_ = to be, where the sounds and not the meaning of the several components are alone attended to[115].

By analogous processes was formed a true alphabet, in which, however, each of the phonetic elements was represented at first by several different characters derived from several different words having the same initial syllable. Here was, therefore, an _embarras de richesses_, which could be got rid of only by a judicious process of elimination, that is, by discarding all like-sounding symbols but one for the same sound. When this final process of reduction was completed by the scribes, in other words, when all the phonetic signs were rejected except 23, _i.e._ one for each of the 23 phonetic elements, the Phoenician alphabet as we now have it was completed. Such may be taken as the real origin of this system, whether the scribes in question were Babylonians, Egyptians, Minaeans, or Europeans, that is, whether the Phoenician alphabet had a cuneiform, a hieroglyphic, a South Arabian, a Cretan (Aegean), Ligurian or Iberian origin, for all these and perhaps other peoples have been credited with the invention. The time is not yet ripe for deciding between these rival claimants[116].

But whatever be the source of the Phoenician, that of the Persian system current under the Achaemenides is clear enough. It is a true alphabet of 37 characters, derived by some selective process directly from the Babylonian cuneiforms, without any attempt at a modification of their shapes. Hence although simple compared with its prototype, it is clumsy enough compared with the Phoenician script, several of the letters requiring groups of as many as four or even five "wedges" for their expression. None of the other cuneiform systems also derived from the Sumerian (the Assyrian, Elamite, Vannic, Medic) appear to have reached the pure alphabetic state, all being still encumbered with numerous complex syllabic characters. The subjoined table, for which I have to thank T. G. Pinches, will help to show the genesis of the cuneiform combinations from the earliest known pictographs. These pictographs themselves are already reduced to the merest outlines of the original pictorial representations. But no earlier forms, showing the gradual transition from the primitive picture writing to the degraded pictographs here given, have yet come to light[117].

Here it may be asked, What is to be thought of the already-mentioned pebble-markings from the Mas-d'Azil Cave at the close of the Old Stone Age? If they are truly phonetic, then we must suppose that palaeolithic man not only invented an alphabetic writing system, but did this right off by intuition, as it were, without any previous knowledge of letters. At least no one will suggest that the Dordogne cave-dwellers were already in possession of pictographic or other crude systems, from which the Mas-d'Azil "script" might have been slowly evolved. Yet E. Piette, who groups these pebbles, painted with peroxide of iron, in the four categories of numerals, symbols, pictographs, and alphabetical characters, states, in reference to these last, that 13 out of 23 Phoenician characters were equally Azilian graphic signs. He even suggests that there may be an approach to an inscription in one group, where, however, the mark indicating a stop implies a script running Semitic-fashion from right to left, whereas the letters themselves seem to face the other way[118]. G. G. MacCurdy[119], who accepts the evidence for the existence of writing in Azilian, if not in Magdalenian times, notes the close similarity between palaeolithic signs and Phoenician, ancient Greek and Cypriote letters. But J. Dechelette[120], reviewing (pp. 234, 236) the arguments against Piette's claims, points out in conclusion (p. 320) the impossibility of admitting that the population of Gaul could suddenly lose so beneficial a discovery as that of writing. Yet thousands of years elapse before the earliest appearance of epigraphic monuments.

A possible connection has been suggested by Sergi between the Mas-d'Azil signs and the markings that have been discovered on the megalithic monuments of North Africa, Brittany, and the British Isles. These are all so rudimentary that resemblances are inevitable, and of themselves afford little ground for necessary connections. Primitive man is but a child, and all children bawl and scrawl much in the same way. Nevertheless C. Letourneau[121] has taken the trouble to compare five such scrawls from "Libyan inscriptions" now in the Bardo Museum, Tunis, with similar or identical signs on Brittany and Irish dolmens. There is the familiar circle plain and dotted [Symbol] [Symbol], the cross in its simplest form [Symbol], the pothook and segmented square [Symbol], all of which recur in the Phoenician, Keltiberian, Etruscan, Libyan or Tuareg systems. Letourneau, however, who does not call them letters but only "signes alphabetiformes," merely suggests that, if not phonetic marks when first carved on the neolithic monuments, they may have become so in later times. Against this it need only be urged that in later times all these peoples were supplied with complete alphabetic systems from the East as soon as they required them. By that time all the peoples of the culture-zone were well-advanced into the historic period, and had long forgotten the rude carvings of their neolithic forefathers.

Armed with a nearly perfect writing system, and the correlated cultural appliances, the higher races soon took a foremost place in the general progress of mankind, and gradually acquired a marked ascendancy, not only over the less cultured populations of the globe, but in large measure over the forces of nature herself. With the development of navigation and improved methods of locomotion, inland seas, barren wastes, and mountain ranges ceased to be insurmountable obstacles to their movements, which within certain limits have never been arrested throughout all recorded time.

Thus, during the long ages following the first peopling of the earth by pleistocene man, fresh settlements and readjustments have been continually in progress, although wholesale displacements must be regarded as rare events. With few exceptions, the later migrations, whether hostile or peaceful, were, for reasons already stated[122], generally of a partial character, while certain insular regions, such as America and Australia, remained little affected by such movements till quite recent times. But for the inhabitants of the eastern hemisphere the results were none the less far-reaching. Continuous infiltrations could not fail ultimately to bring about great modifications of early types, while the ever-active principle of convergence tended to produce a general uniformity amongst the new amalgams. Thus the great varietal divisions, though undergoing slow changes from age to age, continued, like all other zoological groups, to maintain a distinct regional character.

Flinders Petrie has acutely observed that the only meaning the term "race" now can have is that of a group of human beings, whose type has become unified by their rate of assimilation exceeding the rate of change produced by foreign elements[123]. We are also reminded by Gustavo Tosti that "in the actual state of science the word 'race' is a vague formula, to which nothing definite may be found to correspond. On the one hand, the original races can only be said to belong to palaeontology, while the more limited groups, now called races, are nothing but peoples, or societies of peoples, brethren by civilization more than by blood. The race thus conceived ends by identifying itself with nationality[124]." Hence it has been asked why, on the principle of convergence, a fusion of various races, if isolated long enough in a given area, may not eventually lead to a new racial type, without leaving any trace of its manifold origin[125].

Such new racial types would be normal for the later varietal groups, just as the old types were normal for the earlier groups, and a general application might be given to Topinard's famous dictum that _les peuples seuls sont des realites_[126], that is, peoples alone--groups occupying definite geographical areas--have an objective existence. Thus, the notion of race, as a zoological expression in the sense of a pure breed or strain, falls still more into the background, and, as Virchow aptly remarks, "this term, which always implied something vague, has in recent times become in the highest degree uncertain[127]."

Hence Ehrenreich treats the present populations of the earth rather as zoological groups which have been developed in their several geographical domains, and are to be distinguished not so much by their bony structure as by their external characters, such as hair, colour, and expression, and by their habitats and languages. None of these factors can be overlooked, but it would seem that the character of the hair forms the most satisfactory basis for a classification of mankind, and this has therefore been adopted for the new edition of the present work. It has the advantage of simplicity, without involving, or even implying, any particular theory of racial or geographical origins. It has stood the test of time, being proposed by Bory de Saint Vincent in 1827, and adopted by Huxley, Haeckel, Broca, Topinard and many others.

The three main varieties of hair are the _straight_, the _wavy_ and the so-called _woolly_, termed respectively _Leiotrichous_, _Cymotrichous_ and _Ulotrichous_[128]. Straight hair usually falls straight down, though it may curl at the ends, it is generally coarse and stiff, and is circular in section. Wavy hair is undulating, forming long curves or imperfect spirals, or closer rings or curls, and the section is more or less elliptical. Woolly hair is characterised by numerous, close, often interlocking spirals, 1-9 mm. in diameter, the section giving the form of a lengthened ellipse. Straight hair is usually the longest, and woolly hair the shortest, wavy hair occupying an intermediate position.

SCHEME OF CLASSIFICATION.

I. ULOTRICHI (Woolly-haired). 1. The African Negroes, Negrilloes, Bushmen. 2. The Oceanic Negroes: Papuans, Melanesians in part, Tasmanians, Negritoes.

II. LEIOTRICHI (Straight-haired). 1. The Southern Mongols. 2. The Oceanic Mongols, Polynesians in part. 3. The Northern Mongols. 4. The American Aborigines.

III. CYMOTRICHI (Curly or Wavy-haired). 1. The Pre-Dravidians: Vedda, Sakai, etc., Australians. 2. The "Caucasic" peoples: A. Southern Dolichocephals: Mediterraneans, Hamites, Semites, Dravidians, Indonesians, Polynesians in part. B. Northern Dolichocephals: Nordics, Kurds, Afghans, some Hindus. C. Brachycephals: Alpines, including the short Cevenoles of Western and Central Europe, and tall Adriatics or Dinarics of Eastern Europe and the Armenians of Western Asia.

FOOTNOTES:

[66] Thus Lucretius:

"Posterius ferri vis est aerisque reperta, Sed prior aeris erat quam ferri cognitus usus."

[67] J. Dechelette points out that the term Copper "Age" is not justified for the greater part of Europe, as it suggests a demarcation which does not exist and also a more thorough chemical analysis of early metals than we possess. He prefers the term aeneolithic (_aeneus_, copper, [Greek: lithos], stone), coined by the Italians, to denote the period of transition, dating, according to Montelius, from about 2500 B.C. to 1900 B.C. _Manuel d'Archeologie prehistorique_, II. 1, _Age du Bronze_, 1910, pp. 99-100, 105.

[68] _Eth._, Chap. XIII.

[69] See G. Elliot Smith, _The Ancient Egyptians_, 1911, pp. 97-8.

[70] Paper on "The Transition from Pure Copper to Bronze," etc., read at the Meeting of the Brit. Assoc. Liverpool, 1896.

[71] _Loc. cit._ p. 3. But cf. H. R. Hall, _The Ancient History of the Near East_, 1912, pp. 33 and 90 _n._ 2.

[72] G. A. Reisner, _The Early Cemeteries of Naga-ed-der_ (University of California Publications), 1908, and _Report of the Archaeological Survey of Nubia_, 1907-8.

[73] "Campagnes de 1907-8," _Comptes Rendus de l'Academie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres_, 1908, p. 373.

[74] Cf. J. Dechelette, _Manuel d'Archeologie prehistorique_, II. 1, _Age du Bronze_, 1910, pp. 53-4.

[75] Cf. L. W. King, _A History of Sumer and Akkad_, 1910, p. 26.

[76] G. Coffey, _The Bronze Age in Ireland_, 1913, p. 6.

[77] _L'Anthropologie_, 1896, p. 526 sq. This antiquary aptly remarks that "l'expression age de cuivre a une signification bien precise comme s'appliquant a la partie de la periode de la pierre polie ou les metaux font leur apparition."

[78] _L'Anthropologie_, 1896, p. 526 sq.

[79] In _Die Kupferzeit in Europa_, 1886.

[80] "Neuere Studien ueber die Kupferzeit," in _Zeitschr. f. Eth._ 1896, No. 2.

[81] Otto Helm, "Chemische Untersuchungen vorgeschichtlicher Bronzen," in _Zeitschr. f. Eth._ 1897, No. 2. This authority agrees with Hampel's view that further research will confirm the suggestion that in Transylvania (Hungary) "eine Kupfer-Antimonmischung vorangegangen, welche zugleich die Bronzekultur vorbereitete" (_ib._ p. 128).

[82] _Proc. Soc. Bib. Archaeol._ 1892, pp. 223-6.

[83] For the chronology of the Copper and Bronze Ages see p. 27.

[84] Copper and tin are found together in abundance in Southern China, but this is archaeologically speaking an unknown land; "to search for the birth-place of bronze in China is therefore barren of positive results," _British Museum Guide to the Antiquities of the Bronze Age_, 1904, p. 10.

[85] T. Rice Holmes, _Ancient Britain_, 1907, pp. 483-498.

[86] _British Museum Guide to the Antiquities of the Bronze Age_, 1904, p. 10.

[87] J. de Morgan, _Les Premieres Civilisations_, 1909, pp. 169, 337 ff.

[88] J. Dechelette, _Manuel d'Archeologie prehistorique_, II. 1, _Age du Bronze_, 1910, pp. 98 and 397 ff.

[89] J. Dechelette, _loc. cit._ p. 63 _n._

[90] G. Coffey, _The Bronze Age in Ireland_, 1913, pp. V, 78.

[91] J. Dechelette, _Manuel d'Archeologie prehistorique_, II. 1, _Age du Bronze_, 1910, p. 355 _n._

[92] _Guide to the Antiquities of the Early Iron Age_ (British Museum), 1905, p. 2.

[93] Wainwright, "Pre-dynastic iron beads in Egypt," _Man_, 1911, p. 177. See also H. R. Hall, "Note on the early use of iron in Egypt," _Man_, 1903, p. 147.

[94] W. Belck attributes the introduction of iron into Crete in 1500 B.C. to the Phoenicians, whom he derives from the neighbourhood of the Persian Gulf. He suggests that these traders were already acquainted with the metal in S. Arabia in the fourth millennium, and that it was through them that a piece found its way into Egypt in the fourth dynasty. "Die Erfinder des Eisentechnik," _Zeitschrift f. Ethnologie_, 1910. See also F. Stuhlmann, _Handwerk und Industrie in Ostafrika_, 1910, p. 49 ff., who on cultural grounds derives the knowledge of iron in Africa from an Asiatic source.

[95] E. Meyer, "Aegyptische Chronologie," _Abh. Berl. Akad._ 1904, and "Nachtraege," _ib._ 1907. This chronology has been adopted by the Berlin school and others, but is unsatisfactory in allowing insufficient time for Dynasties XII to XVIII, which are known to contain 100 to 200 rulers. Flinders Petrie therefore adds another Sothic period (1461 years, calculated from Sothis or Sirius), thus throwing the earlier dynasties a millennium or two further back. Dynasty I, according to this computation starts in 5546 B.C. and Dynasty XII at 3779. H. R. Hall, _The Ancient History of the Near East_, 1912, p. 23.

[96] L. W. King, _The History of Sumer and Akkad_, 1910, and "Babylonia," Hutchinson's _History of the Nations_, 1914.

[97] C. H. Hawes and H. Boyd Hawes, _Crete the Forerunner of Greece_, 1909.

[98] J. Dechelette, _Manuel d'Archeologie prehistorique_, II. 1, _Age du Bronze_, 1910, p. 61.

[99] J. Dechelette, _loc. cit._ p. 105 ff. based on the work of O. Montelius and P. Reinecke.

[100] The Dynasty of Akkad is often dated a millennium earlier, relying on the statement of Nabonidus (556-540 B.C.) that Naram-Sin (the traditional son of Sargon of Akkad) reigned 3200 years before him; but this statement is now known to be greatly exaggerated. See the section on chronology in the Art. "Babylonia," in _Ency. Brit._ 1910.

[101] _Guide to the Antiquities of the Early Iron Age_ (British Museum), 1905, p. 1.

[102] Cf. J. Dechelette, _Manuel d'Archeologie prehistorique_, II. 2, _Premier Age du Fer_, 1913, pp. 546, 562-3.

[103] _The Early Age of Greece_, 1900, pp. 594-630.

[104] "Die Hallstattperiode," _Ass. francaise p. l'av. des sciences_, 1905, p. 278, and _Kultur der Urzeit_, III. _Eisenzeit_, 1912, p. 54.

[105] "Ein Schaedel aus der aelteren Hallstattzeit," in _Verhandl. Berlin. Ges. f. Anthrop._ 1896, pp. 243-6.

[106] _Guide to the Antiquities of the Early Iron Age_ (British Museum), 1905, p. 8.

[107] Hans Seger, "Figuerliche Darstellungen auf schlesischen Graebgefaessen der Hallstattzeit," _Globus_, Nov. 20, 1897.

[108] _Ibid._ p. 297.

[109] Homer's [Greek: hemitheon genos andron], _Il._ XII. 23, if the passage is genuine.

[110] Such as the Greek _Andreas_, the "First Man," invented in comparatively recent times, as shown by the intrusive _d_ in [Greek: andres] for the earlier [Greek: aneres], "men." Andreas was of course a Greek, sprung in fact from the river Peneus and the first inhabitant of the Orchomenian plain (Pausanias, IX. 34, 5).

[111] For instance, the flooding of the Thessalian plain, afterwards drained by the Peneus and repeopled by the inhabitants of the surrounding mountains (rocks, stones), whence the myth of Deucalion and Pyrrha, who are told by the oracle to repeople the world by throwing behind them the "bones of their grandmother," that is, the "stones" of mother Earth.

[112] Such instances as George Guest's Cherokee system, and the crude attempt of a Vei (West Sudanese) Negro, if genuine, are not here in question, as both had the English alphabet to work upon. A like remark applies to the old Irish and Welsh Ogham, which are more curious than instructive, the characters, mostly mere groups of straight strokes, being obvious substitutes for the corresponding letters of the Roman alphabet, hence comparable to the cryptographic systems of Wheatstone and others.

[113] Maspero, _The Dawn of Civilisation_, 1898, p. 728.

[114] _Ibid._

[115] _Ibid._ p. 233.

[116] See P. Giles, Art. "Alphabet," _Ency. Brit._ 1910.

[117] See A. J. Booth, _The Discovery and Decipherment of the Trilingual Cuneiform Inscriptions_, 1902.

[118] _L'Anthr_. XV. 1904, p. 164.

[119] _Recent Discoveries bearing on the Antiquity of Man in Europe_ (Smithsonian Report for 1909), 1910, p. 566 ff.

[120] _Manuel d'Archeologie prehistorique_, I. 1908.

[121] "Les signes libyques des dolmens," _Bul. Soc. d'Anthrop._ 1896, p. 319.

[122] _Eth._ Chap. XIII.

[123] _Address_, Meeting British Assoc. Ipswich, 1895.

[124] _Amer. J. of Sociology_, Jan. 1898, pp. 467-8.

[125] A. Vierkandt, _Globus_, 72, p. 134.

[126] _Elements d'Anthropologie Generale_, p. 207.

[127] _Rassenbildung u. Erblichkeit_; _Bastian-Festschrift_, 1896, p. 1.

[128] From Gk. [Greek: leios], smooth, [Greek: kuma], wave, [Greek: oulos], fleecy, and [Greek: thrix], [Greek: trichos], hair. J. Deniker (_The Races of Man_, 1900, p. 38) distinguishes four classes, the Australians, Nubians etc. being grouped as _frizzy_. He gives the corresponding terms in French and German:--straight, Fr. _droit_, _lisse_, Germ. _straff_, _schlicht_; wavy, Fr. _onde_, Germ. _wellig_; frizzy, Fr. _frise_, Germ. _lockig_; woolly, Fr. _crepu_, Germ. _kraus_.