The Alpine Races in Europe

Abstract

THIS paper is an attempt to interpret the admitted distribution of human types in Central and Eastern Europe, both in modern times and in successive periods of antiquity, partly in connection with similar though scantier evidence from adjacent regions of Western Asia, partly as conditioned by changes in the distribution of land and water, and of climate and vegetation, which are indicated by recent work in palaogeography, as far back as the Ice Age and the period immediately preceding it. For convenience of reference, I propose to limit myself almost exclusively to data which are accessible in a few standard works and fairly well-known papers: for anthropology, to Deniker's 'Races de l'Europe,' 1897; 'The Races of Man' (E. T.), 1900; and his Huxley Memorial Lecture (1904) in Journ. Anthr. Inst., 34, 1810; and to Ripley's 'Races of Europe,' 1900: in palaeogeography, to Suess, ' The Face of the Earth,' 1 (E. T. Oxford, 1904); and to Ratzel's papers, Die Ursprung und Wanderung der Volker geographisch betrachtet, in Ber. i Verh. d. k. Sachs. Ges. Wiss. Leipzig, 50 (1898), 52 (1900). It is to the last named that I owe the suggestive treatment of the conditions in Eastern Europe, which started me on the present inquiry. On the statical aspect of the matter there is practical unanimity, though the evidence is still incomplete here and there, and in detail. Presentations of the anthropology of Europe as different superficially as those of Ripley and Deniker agree on closer analysis in recognizing three main types: (1) the long-headed dark Homo Mediterraneus, bounded northwards by the Alpine barrier, but with littoral offshoots along the Atlantic seaboard; (2) the long-headed blonde H, borealis, disposed