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

and short-headed peoples who, reinforced perhaps from time to time by hordes of immigrants, had inhabited the whole of Gaul since the Neolithic Age, and of whom the former, or many of them, were descended from palaeolithic hunters; in other words that they were the same people who, after they had been conquered by, or had coalesced with, the Celtic invaders, called themselves Celtae: but to say which of them were first known as Ligurians or introduced the Ligurian language would be utterly hopeless. Finally the little evidence we possess tends to show that the people called Ligurians, when they became known to the Greek writers who described them, were a medley of different races."

For Sicily, with which may practically be included the south of Italy, we have the conclusions of G. Patroni based on years of intelligent and patient labours[1065]. To Africa this archaeologist traces the palaeolithic men of the west coast of Sicily and of the caves near Syracuse explored by Von Adrian[1066]. "We are forced to conclude that man arrived in Sicily from Africa at a time when the isthmus connecting the island with that Continent still stood above sea-level. He made his appearance about the same time as the elephant, whose remains are associated with human bones especially in the west. He followed the sea coasts, the shells of which offered him sufficient food[1067]." He was followed by the neolithic man, whose presence has been revealed by the researches of Paolo Orsi at the station of Stentinello on the coast north of Syracuse.

To Orsi is also due the discovery of what he calls the "Aeneolithic Epoch[1068]," represented by the bronzes of the Girgenti district. Orsi assigns this culture to the Siculi, and divides it into three periods, while regarding the neolithic men of Stentinello as pre-Siculi. But Patroni holds that the aeneolithic peoples have a right to the historic name of Sicani, and that the true Siculi were those that arrived from Italy in Orsi's second period. It seems no longer possible to determine the true relations of these two peoples, who stand out as distinct throughout early historic times. They are by many[1069] regarded as of one race, although both ([Greek: Sikanos, Sikelos]) are already mentioned in the Odyssey. But the evidence tends to show that the Sicani represent the oldest element which came direct from Africa in the Stone Age, while the Siculi were a branch of the Ligurians driven in the Metal Age from Italy to the island, which was already occupied by the Sicani, as related by Dionysius Halicarnassus[1070]. In fact this migration of the Siculi may be regarded as almost an historical event, which according to Thucydides took place "about 300 years before the Hellenes came to Sicily[1071]." The Siculi bore this national name on the mainland, so that the modern expression "Kingdom of the Two Sicilies" (the late Kingdom of Naples) has its justification in the earliest traditions of the people. Later, both races were merged in one, and the present Sicilian nation was gradually constituted by further accessions of Phoenician (Carthaginian), Greek, Roman, Vandal, Arab, Norman, French and Spanish elements.

Very remarkable is the contrast presented by the conditions prevailing in this ethnical microcosm and those of Sardinia, inhabited since the Stone Ages by one of the most homogeneous groups in the world. From the statistics embodied in R. Livi's Antropologia Militare[1072] the Sards would almost seem to be cast all in one mould, the great bulk of the natives having the shortest stature, the brownest eyes and hair, the longest heads, the swarthiest complexion of all the Italian populations. "They consequently form quite a distinct variety amongst the Italian races, which is natural enough when we remember the seclusion in which this island has remained for so many ages[1073]." They seem to have been preserved as if in some natural museum to show us what the Ligurian branch of the Mediterranean stock may have been in neolithic times. Yet they were probably preceded by the microcephalous dwarfish race described by Sergi as one of the early Mediterranean stocks. Their presence in Sardinia has now been determined by A. Niceforo and E. A. Onnis, who find that of about 130 skulls from old graves thirty have a capacity of only 1150 c.c. or under, while several living persons range in height from 4 ft. 2 in. to 4 ft. 11 in. Niceforo agrees with Sergi in bringing this dwarfish race also from North Africa[1074].

With remarkable cranial uniformity, similar phenomena are presented by the Corsicans who show "the same exaggerated length of face and narrowness of the forehead. The cephalic index drops from 87 and above in the Alps to about 75 all along the line. Coincidently the colour of hair and eyes becomes very dark, almost black. The figure is less amply proportioned, the people become light and rather agile. It is certain that the stature at the same time falls to an exceedingly low level: fully 9 inches below the average for Teutonic Europe," although "the people of Northern Africa, pure Mediterranean Europeans, are of medium size[1075]."

In the Italian peninsula Sergi holds not only that the aborigines were exclusively of Ligurian, i.e. Mediterranean stock, but that this stock still persists in the whole of the region south of the Tiber, although here and there mixed with "Aryan" elements. North of that river these elements increase gradually up to the Italian Alps, and at present are dominant in the valley of the Po[1076]. In this way he would explain the rising percentage of round-heads in that direction, the Ligurians being for him, as stated, long-headed, the "Aryans" round-headed.

Similarly Beddoe, commenting on Livi's statistics, showing predominance of tall stature, round heads, and fair complexion in North Italy, infers "that a type, the one we usually call the Mediterranean, does really predominate in the south, and exists in a state of comparative purity in Sardinia and Calabria; while in the north the broad-headed Alpine type is powerful, but is almost everywhere more or less modified by, or interspersed with other types--Germanic, Slavic, or of doubtful origin--to which the variations of stature and complexion may probably be, at least in part, attributed[1077]."

Similar relations prevail in the Balkan peninsula, where the Mediterranean stock is represented by the "Pelasgic[1078]" substratum. Invented, as has been said, for the purpose of confounding future ethnologists, these Pelasgians certainly present an extremely difficult racial problem, the solution of which has hitherto resisted the combined attacks of ancient and modern students. When Dionysius tells us bluntly that they were Greeks[1079], we fancy the question is settled off-hand, until we find Herodotus describing them a few hundred years earlier as aliens, rude in speech and usages, distinctly not Greeks, and in his time here and there (Thrace, Hellespont) still speaking apparently non-Hellenic dialects[1080]. Then Homer several centuries still earlier, with his epithet of [Greek: dioi], occurring both in the Iliad and the Odyssey[1081], exalts them almost above the level of the Greeks themselves. It would seem, therefore, almost impossible to discover a key to the puzzle, one which will also fit in both with Sergi's Mediterranean theory, and with the results of recent archaeological researches in the Aegean lands. The following hypothesis is supported by a certain amount of evidence. If the pre-Mykenaean culture revealed by Schliemann and others in the Troad, Mykenae, Argos, Tiryns, by Evans and others in Crete, by Cesnola in Cyprus, be ascribed to a pre-Hellenic rather than to a proto-Hellenic people, then the classical references will explain themselves, while this pre-Hellenic race will be readily identified with the Pelasgians, as this term is understood by Sergi.

It is, I suppose, universally allowed that Greece really was peopled before the arrival of the Hellenes, which term is here to be taken as comprising all the invading tribes from the north, of which the Achaeans were perhaps the earliest. On their arrival the Hellenes therefore found the land not only inhabited, but inhabited by a cultured people more civilised than themselves, who could thus be identified with Sergi's Pelasgian branch of the Mediterranean or Afro-European stock, whom the proto-Hellenes naturally regarded as their superiors, and whom their first singers also naturally called [Greek: dioi Pelasgoi][1082]. But in the course of a few centuries[1083] these Pelasgians became Hellenised, all but a few scattered groups, which lagging behind in the general social progress are now also looked upon as barbarians, speaking barbaric tongues, and are so described by contemporary historians. Then these few remnants of a glorious but forgotten past are also merged in the Hellenic stream, and can no longer be distinguished from other Greeks by contemporary writers. Hence for Dionysius the Pelasgians are simply Greeks, which in a sense may be true enough. All the heterogeneous elements have been fused in a single Hellenic nationality, built upon a rough Pelasgic substratum, and adorned with all the graces of Hellenic culture.

Now to make good this hypothesis, it is necessary to show, first, that the Pelasgians were not an obscure tribe, a small people confined to some remote corner of Hellas, but a widespread nation diffused over all the land; secondly, that this nation, as far as can now be determined, presented mental and other characters answering to those of Sergi's Mediterraneans, and also such as might be looked for in a race capable of developing the splendid Aegean culture of pre-Hellenic times.

On the first point it has been claimed that the Pelasgians were so widely distributed[1084] that the difficulty rather is to discover a district where their presence was unknown. They fill the background of Hellenic origins, and even spread beyond the Hellenic horizon, to such an extent that there seems little room for any other people between the Adriatic and the Hellespont. Thus Ridgeway[1085] has brought together a good many passages which clearly establish their universal range, as well as their occupation especially of those places where have been found objects of Mykenaean and pre-Mykenaean culture, such as engraved gems, pottery, implements, buildings, inscriptions in pictographic and syllabic scripts. In Crete they had the "great city of Knossos" in Homer's time[1086]; not only was Mykenae theirs, but the whole of Peloponnesus took the name of Pelasgia; the kings of Tiryns were Pelasgians, and Aeschylus calls Argos a Pelasgian city; an old wall at Athens was attributed to them, and the people of Attica had from all time been Pelasgians[1087]. Orchomenus in Boeotia was founded by a colony from Pelasgiotis in Thessaly; Lesbos also was called Pelasgia, and Homer knew of Pelasgians in the Troad. Their settlements are further traced to Egypt, to Rhodes, Cyprus, Epirus--where Dodona was their ancient shrine--and lastly to various parts of Italy.

Moreover, the Pelasgians were traditionally the civilising element, who taught people to make bread, to yoke the ox to the plough, and to measure land. It would appear from these and other allusions that there were memories of still earlier aborigines, amongst whom the Pelasgians appear as a cultured people, introducing perhaps the arts and industries of the pre-Mykenaean Age. But the assumption, based on no known data, is unnecessary, and it seems more reasonable to look on this culture as locally developed, to some extent under eastern (Egyptian, Babylonian, Hittite?) influences[1088]. Here it is important to note that the Pelasgians were credited with a knowledge of letters[1089], and all this has been advanced as sufficient confirmation of our second postulate. Nevertheless it must be acknowledged that the difficulties are not all overcome by this hypothesis, and the further question of language divides even its stanchest supporters into opposing groups, for while Sergi's Mediterraneans necessarily speak a non-Indo-European language[1090], Ridgeway's Pelasgians speak Aeolic Greek[1091].

The range and importance of the Pelasgians are most strictly limited by J. L. Myres[1092], who thinks that the Alpine type may even be primitive in the Morea, Mediterranean man being an intruder from the south merely fringing the coast and never penetrating inland. The researches of von Luschan in Lycia support this view[1093], and Ripley's map of the present inhabitants