Man, Past and Present - Agustus Henry Keane, A. Hingston Quiggin, Alfred Court Haddon (most popular novels txt) 📗

by great rivers, such as the Massarawa trending south to the Niger, or the Igharghar[1007] flowing north to the Mediterranean, and that these now dry beds may still be traced for hundreds of miles by chains of pools or lakelets, by long eroded valleys and by other indications of the action of running waters.

Nor could there be any lack of vegetable or animal life in a favoured region, which was thus abundantly supplied with natural irrigation arteries, while the tropical heats were tempered by great elevation and at times by the refreshing breezes from sub-arctic Europe.

From these well-watered and fertile lands, some of which continued even in Roman times to be the granary of the empire, came that succession of southern animals--hippopotamus, hyaena, rhinoceros, elephant, cave-lion--which made Europe seem like a "zoological appendix of Africa." In association with this fauna may have come man himself, for although North Africa has not yet yielded evidence of a widespread culture comparable to that of the Palaeolithic Age in Europe, yet the negroid characters of the Grimaldi skeletons have been held to prove an early connection between the opposite shores of the Mediterranean. The hypothesis of African origin is supported by archaeological evidence of the presence of early man all over North Africa from the shores of the Mediterranean through Egypt to Somaliland. Thus one of J. de Morgan's momentous conclusions was that the existence of civilised men in Egypt might be reckoned by thousands, and of the aborigines by myriads of years. These aborigines he identified with the men of the Old Stone Age, of whom he believed four stations to have been discovered--Dahshur, Abydos, Tukh, and Thebes[1008].

Of Tunisia Arsene Dumont declared that "the immense period of time during which man made use of stone implements is nowhere so strikingly shown." Here some of the flints were found in abundance under a thick bed of quaternary limestone deposited by the waters of a stream that has disappeared. Hence "the origin of man in Mauretania must be set back to a remote age which deranges all chronology and confounds the very fables of the mythologies[1009]."

The skeleton found in 1914 by Hans Reck at Oldoway (then German East Africa) was claimed to be of Pleistocene Age, but according to A. Keith "the evidence ... cannot be accepted as having finally proved this degree of antiquity[1010]."

The doctrine of the specialisation of the dolichocephalic European types in Africa, before their migrations northwards, lies at the base of Sergi's views regarding the African origin of those types. Arguing against the Asiatic origin of the Hamites, as held by Prichard, Virchow, Sayce and others, he points out that this race, scarcely if at all represented in Asia, has an immense range in Africa, where its several sub-varieties must have been evolved before their dispersion over a great part of that continent and of Europe. Then, regarding Hamites and Semites as essentially one, he concludes that Africa is the cradle whence this primitive stock "spread northwards to Europe, where it still persists, especially in the Mediterranean and its three principal peninsulas, and eastwards to West Asia[1011]."

The theory of an African cradle for the dolichocephalic Mediterranean type does not lack supporters, but when, relying on the undeniable presence of brachycephals, some writers would derive the Alpine type from the same area, the larger aspect of continental migrations appears to be overlooked (see pp. 451-2 below). To constitute a distinct race, says Zaborowski, a wide geographical area is needed, such as is presented by both shores of the Mediterranean "with the whole of North Africa including the Sahara, which was till lately still thickly peopled[1012]." Then to the question by whom has this North African and Mediterranean region been inhabited since quaternary times, he answers "by the ancestors of our Libyans, Egyptians, Pelasgians, Iberians"; and after rejecting the Asiatic theory, he elsewhere arrives at "the grand generalisation that the whole of North Africa, connected by land with Europe in the Quaternary epoch, formed part of the geographical area of the ancient white race, of which the Egyptians, so far from being the parent stem, would appear to be merely a branch[1013]."

Coming to details, Bertholon[1014], from the human remains found by Carton at Bulla-Regia, determined for Tunisia and surrounding lands two main long-headed types, one like the Neandertal (occurring both in Khumeria, and in the stations abounding in palaeoliths), the other like the later Cro-Magnon dolmen-builders, whom De Quatrefages had already identified with the tall, long-headed, fair, and even blue-eyed Berbers still met in various parts of Mauretania, and formerly represented in the Canary Islands[1015]. Bertholon agrees with Collignon that the Mauretanian megalith-builders are of the same race as those of Europe, and besides the two long-headed races describes (1) a short round-headed type in Gerba Island and East Tunisia[1016] representing the Libyans proper, and (2) a blond type of the Sahel, Khumeria, and other parts, whom he identifies with the Mazices of Herodotus, with the "Afri," whose name has been extended to the whole continent, and the blond Getulians of the Aures Mountains.

It has been objected that, as established by de Lapouge and Ripley, there are three distinct ethnical zones in Europe:--(1) Nordic: the tall, fair, long-headed northern type, commonly identified by the Germans with the race represented by the osseous remains from the "Reihengraeber," i.e. the "Germanic," which the French call Kymric or Aryan, for which de Lapouge reserves Linne's Homo europaeus, and to which Ripley applies the term "Teutonic," because the whole combination of characters "accords exactly with the descriptions handed down to us by the ancients. Such were the Goths, Ostrogoths, Visigoths, Vandals, Lombards, together with the Danes, Norsemen, Saxons.... History is thus corroborated by natural science." (2) Mediterranean: the southern zone of short, dark, long-heads, i.e. the primitive element in Iberia, Italy, South France, Sicily, Corsica, Sardinia, and Greece, called Iberians by the English, and identified by many with the Ligurians, Pelasgians, and allied peoples, grouped together by Ripley as Mediterraneans[1017]. (3) Alpine: the central zone of short, medium-sized round-heads with light or chestnut hair, and gray or hazel eye, de Lapouge's and Ripley's Homo alpinus, the Kelts or Kelto-Slavs of the French, the Ligurians or Arvernians of Beddoe and other English writers. Here belong the tall Armenoids, the Armenians being descendants of the Hittites.

The question is, Can all these have come from North Africa? We have seen that this region has yielded the remains of one round-headed and two long-headed prehistoric types. Henri Malbot pointed out that, as far back as we can go, we meet the two quite distinct long-headed Berber types, and he holds that this racial duality is proved by the megalithic tombs (dolmens) of Roknia between Jemmapes and Guelma, possibly some 4000 or 5000 years old. The remains here found by L. L. C. Faidherbe belong to two different races, both dolichocephalic, but one tall, with prominent zygomatic arches and very strong nasal spine (it reads almost like the description of a brawny Caledonian), the other short, with well-balanced skull and small nasal spine[1018]. The earliest (Egyptian) records refer to brown and blond populations living in North Africa some 5000 years ago, and it has been claimed that the raw materials, so to say, were here to hand both of the fair northern and dark southern European long-heads.

These different races were represented even amongst the extinct Guanches of the Canary Islands, as shown by a study of the 52 heads procured in 1894 by H. Meyer from caves in the archipelago[1019]. Three distinct types are determined: (1) Guanche, akin to the Cro-Magnon, tall (5 ft. 8 in. to 6 ft. 2 in.), robust, dolicho (78), low, broad face; large eyes, rather short nose; fair, reddish or light chestnut hair; skin and eyes light; ranged throughout the islands, but centred chiefly in Tenerife; (2) "Semitic," short (5 ft. 4 or 5 in.), slim, narrow mesocephalic head (81), narrow, long face, black hair, light brown skin, dark eyes; range, Grand Canary, Palma, and Hierro; (3) Armenoid, akin to von Luschan's pre-Semitic of Asia Minor; shorter than 1 and 2; very short, broad, and high skull (hyperbrachy, 84); hair, skin and eyes very probably of the West Asiatic brunette type; range, mainly in Gomera, but met everywhere. Many of the skulls had been trepanned, and these are brought into direct association with the full-blood Berbers of the Aures Mts. in Algeria, who still practise trepanning for wounds, headaches, and other reasons. This type is scarcely to be distinguished from Lapouge's short brown Homo alpinus, which dates from the Stone Ages, and is found in densest masses in the Central Alpine regions, but the true Armenoids are differentiated by their taller stature[1020].

How numerous were the inhabitants of France at that time may be inferred from the long list of no less than 4000 neolithic stations given for that region by Ph. Salmon. Of the 688 skulls from those stations measured by him, 57.7 per cent. are classed as dolicho, 21.2 as brachycephalic, and 21.1 as intermediate. This distinguished palethnologist regards the intermediates as the result of crossings between the two others, and of these he thinks the first arrivals were the round-heads, who ranged over a vast area between Brittany, the Channel, the Pyrenees, and the Mediterranean, 60 per cent. of the graves hitherto studied containing skulls of this type[1021]. Belgium also, where a mixture of long- and round-heads is found amongst the men of Furfooz, must be included in this neolithic brachy domain, which can be traced as far westward as the British Isles[1022]. Attempts have been made, as indicated above, to derive these brachycephals, as well as the dolichocephals, from North Africa, in accordance with the view that the latter region was the true centre of evolution and of dispersion for all the main branches of the Caucasic family, but this theory has few supporters at the present time. Sergi recognised the Asiatic origin of the neolithic round-heads and regarded them as "peaceful infiltrations[1023]," forerunners of the great invasions of the later Metal Ages. Verneau points out[1024] that when all the neolithic stations in which brachycephalic skulls have been discovered are plotted out on a map of Europe it is easy to recognise a current running almost directly from east to west. Moreover towards the west this current divides, being clearly separated by zones of dolichocephaly.

Evidence of the presence in early times of tall blond peoples in Africa, side by side with a short dark population, and of brachycephals together with dolichocephals, proves that even in the Stone Age ethnic mixtures had already taken place, and racial purity--if indeed it ever existed--must be sought for in still remoter periods.

With Sergi's view which traces the neolithic inhabitants of the northern shores of the Mediterranean (Iberians, Ligurians, Messapians, Siculi and other Itali, Pelasgians), to North Africa, most anthropologists agree[1025]. Also that all or most of these were primarily of a dark (brown), short, dolicho type, which still persists both in South Europe and North Africa, and in fact is the race which Ripley properly calls "Mediterranean," although in the west they almost certainly ranged into Brittany and the British Isles. But there are some who hold that the migration was in the opposite direction, and derive the North African branch from Europe, rather than the European branches from Africa. "Anthropologists who have specially studied the question of the Berbers or Kabyles have concluded that they are descendants of prehistoric European invaders who occupied the tracts that suited them best[1026]." In France the neolithic "Mediterranean type" has been regarded as lineally descended from palaeolithic predecessors in situ[1027]. Some would even go further still, and claim Europe as the place of origin not only of the Mediterranean but also of the Alpine and Northern branches. "The so-called three races of Europe are in the main the result of variation from a common European stock, a variation due to isolation and natural selection[1028]."

Without making any claim to finality the following perhaps best represents orthodox opinion at the present time.