Raquet PinsFIG. 20.—FIVE TYPES OF RACQUET PINS.
FIG. 20.—FIVE TYPES OF RACQUET PINS.
Chantre has shown that the two cultures which he described were existing at the same time, for the graves of one people sometimes contained objects belonging to the culture of the other;[390]not only, then, did the cultures synchronise, but the peoples had come into contact. There is no reason for believing that the Koban folk, militarist though they were, had conquered their humble neighbours. That the reverse had taken place is unthinkable. The evidence suggests that the contact had been peaceful,that trade relations had been established, and perhaps the Koban folk, who appear to have been new-comers in this region, may have taken wives from their neighbours. All this points to the fact that it was in the Koban region that the steppe-folk first learned the use of iron, and that they carried the knowledge of it thence to the Danube basin, rather than that the reverse process took place.
But, it may be asked, how can we be sure that our Koban people are the steppe-folk, who have been the heroes of the last few chapters? Their culture closely resembles that of Hallstatt, which is but a development of the later bronze age culture of Central Europe, and even their earlier graves clearly belong to the same series. This is so obvious that Rostovtzeff is content merely to state that they had come from the west.[391]
It may be well, however, to submit more precise proofs of this origin. During the later bronze age a certain type of pin had been used in Hungary, possibly, as some think, as a hair-pin, but used more probably, as Lissauer has suggested, to fasten thechlamys,togaor plaid, which these steppe-folk appear to have worn. These pins are known to the Germans asRudernadln[392]and to the French asépingles à raquette.[393]Lissauer recognises five types, which we will distinguish by the letter A to E. A developes into B, and this again into alternative forms, C and E. A also developes by stages, which are at present missing, into D.
Koban Raquet PinsFIG. 21.—RACQUET PINS FROM KOBAN.
FIG. 21.—RACQUET PINS FROM KOBAN.
Now Types A and B have been found in North Italy, Switzerland, Wurtemberg and on the Rhine. They have also been found in Hungary, at Tökés, Gata, Versecz and Butta. Two have been found in Bohemia, at Noutonic and Krendorf, and one at Gaya in Moravia. Thus these two types are fairly well distributed over both halves of the Celtic cradle. Type D has been found at Andrasfalva in Hungary, and at Alt-Bydzowin Bohemia. Besides these several have been found further afield, one at Dexheim in Rhenish Hesse, one at Greisheim in Hesse-Darmstadt and one at Fritzen in East Prussia. Lastly several have been found in the Koban graves,[394]and these are larger and more developed than the others.
This evidence seems to show us that this type of pin was at first well distributed throughout the Celtic cradle, and that the dimensions of the head increased in Hungary and Bohemia. About the time that this later form was in use some kind of exodus took place to various distant places. That one of these expeditions passed to the east, in the direction of south Russia, is clear from the occurrence of this type, in its most developed form, in the Koban graveyards. We can well believe that these emigrants left the Celtic cradle by the Moravian gate, and passed along the more or less open spaces at the northern foot of the Carpathians, to which reference has already been made, and so into the plain of Russia and finally to the foot of the Caucasus. The journey would have been made on horseback, and need not have occupied many weeks so there is no need to expect much evidence from objects losten route; but, as they must have crossed Podolia on their way to the Koban, it seems probable that it was these emigrants who left at Zavadyntse the sword which was mentioned in a previous chapter, as this is the only example of a Central European sword recorded from the eastern plain. The Podolian sword was of Type E, and this gives us a clue to the date, and will enable us to put together in their proper order these various items of evidence.
Zavadyntse SwordFIG. 22.SWORD FROMZAVADYNTSE.
FIG. 22.SWORD FROMZAVADYNTSE.
The evidence which I have cited in the foregoing pages can best be explained by believing that about 1150B.C.some of the steppe-folk from the Hungarian plain departed, probably through the Moravian gate, to seek fresh pastures. While some may have gone northwards, the majority passed along the open sandy heaths of Galicia, across Podolia, where a sword was lost at Zavadyntse, and so on to the grassy plains by the banks of the Koban river. Here they settled for a time, and during their wanderingssome came into contact with the humble iron-using people on the southern slopes of the Caucasus. Whether they approached these people to trade or to acquire some commodity in which they themselves were lacking, or whether they sought them to obtain their daughters for wives, we know not; all we can be sure is that some intercourse took place. It seems clear, too, that it was from their humble neighbours that the Koban-folk learned of the existence of iron or steel, and how to work that metal. It was not small knives they needed, but better blades for their trusty swords. Thus, I believe, the use of iron was first learned by the peoples of Europe.
This discovery must have been made by 1100B.C.at the latest probably some years earlier. The Koban-folk realised that steel blades were far superior to those of bronze, and doubtless were anxious to show off their new acquisition before the old folks at home. They may, too, have remembered that the stone from which their neighbours extracted the metal was plentiful in some parts of the old country. Whatever the cause, I believe that some of them returned to Hungary with their new discovery, before bronze swords of Type F had been evolved or at any rate had come into general use.
Iron ore, which could easily be worked by primitive methods, occurs in Transylvania, at Gyalar,[395]and it seems likely that it was in this neighbourhood that they first settled. It is also possible that about this time some of them occupied Thrace, for in early days Thracian swords had a great reputation.[396]By degrees they pushed up the Danube, at any rate as far as its junction with the Save. Before 1000B.C.a large number of them advanced up the Morava and down the Vardar and soon afterwards entered Thessaly, whence they started on that series of conquests known as the return of the Heraclids, or the Dorian invasion of Greece.[397]
Many of these Koban-folk settled on the southern bank of the Danube and the Save, and in the hill country behind; various cemeteries of this time have beendiscovered in this region, the most famous of which is that at Glasinatz in Bosnia.[398]Others pushed up the Save, which runs through mountains of an easily worked iron ore; evidence of early workings have been found on the banks of the Mur in Styria and on the upper Drave in Carinthia.[399]
A little later, between 1000 and 900B.C., some of these people passed over into Italy. They may have crossed the Adriatic, as did in all probability the men of the leaf-shaped sword, but it is tempting to think that they crossed the Predil pass and settled at Santa Lucia Tolmino, near the head waters of the Isonzo. Here a cemetery was found in 1885,[400]much of the grave furniture from which is, or was in 1914 in the Trieste Museum, while the remainder is in Vienna. More than 1000 graves were found and the cemetery must have been in existence for several centuries; but it is usually believed that the earliest graves date only from the eighth century. Others of the same party crossed the mountains into the rich Friuli plain and settled at Dernazacco, near Cividale,[401]and gradually spread thence over the Veneto.
We come across further evidence of their advance at Este,[402]and as they crossed the Po valley they destroyed theterremare, which had existed there since early in the bronze age and dispersed their inhabitants.[403]There is evidence that about this time some of theterramara-folk arrived in Etruria,[404]others are found settling in the neighbourhood of Taranto,[405]while Dr. Hooton has shown that there are strong reasons for believing that the earliest settlement on the Palatine Hill at Rome was due to these people.[406]The invaders seem to have occupied all the plain of Italy north-east of the Apeninnes, the area known later as Ombrice[407]or Etruria Circumpadana,[408]but the most important spots at which their remains have been found are in and around Bologna. From one of the best-known sites in that city their culture has been called that of Villanova.[409]That at one time they conquered Etruria has been suggested in chapterIV., and doubtless it was they who extended the Etruscan rule from the Alps to the south of Naples; but, as has already been explained, it would be a mistake to confuse them with the real Etruscans.
Distribution of Type G SwordsFIG. 23.—MAP SHOWING DISTRIBUTION OF TYPE G SWORDS IN FRANCE.
FIG. 23.—MAP SHOWING DISTRIBUTION OF TYPE G SWORDS IN FRANCE.
Distribution of Iron SwordsFIG. 24.—MAP SHOWING DISTRIBUTION OF IRON SWORDS IN FRANCE.
FIG. 24.—MAP SHOWING DISTRIBUTION OF IRON SWORDS IN FRANCE.
We have seen that in the mountain zone the pile-dwelling civilisation continued throughout the bronze age. This type of culture, introduced by the early Alpines from Asia Minor, was adopted in Central Europe by the Nordic intruders, who had made themselves lords over the Alpine peasants. That they were still retaining their race exclusiveness is clear from the fact that long and broad-headed skulls are still found side by side.[410]In the plain, however, where we have no evidence of Alpine settlement, all signs of pile-dwellings are absent.
It is a striking fact that with the arrival of iron swords into the mountain zone this pile-dwelling culture, which had existed from early neolithic days till the close of the bronze age, came suddenly to an end. This cannot be merely an accident, for the same thing occurred all over Central Europe.[411]It is also significant that some centuries later it was revived.[412]Some important revolution must have taken place to end so abruptly a custom which had lasted for thousands of years, and to end it with equal suddenness in all parts of the mountain zone. I can only account for it in one way, by supposing that the men of the plain, who had never occupied this type of dwelling, had swept over the mountain zone, carrying fire and the iron sword throughout the villages of their neighbours.
This I am inclined to think must have been the case, and such an invasion would account for the widespread exodus of people with the Type G swords, which we have found scattered over many areas in France, over parts of North Germany, and stretching even to Scandinavia and Finland, and which reached the British Isles, with much other culture belonging to the Swiss lake-dwellings, as Crawford has recently shown us.[413]These people with the Type G swords must have been refugees from the invasion of the iron sword people. Déchelette has given us a map showing their progress in France, and on the same map he indicates the progress of the iron sword men.[414]The latter followed the refugees in almost every direction, and it was only in the Seine valley that the exiles escaped pursuit. This is a point to which I shall have to refer in a later chapter.
WEare now in a position to interpret the meaning of the evolution and distribution of these leaf-shaped swords, though there are many details, which we would gladly know, but of which we must remain in ignorance, perhaps for ever. We can, however, form some general idea of the events which were taking place in Europe during the centuries under review, and it will, perhaps, make for lucidity if they are here recapitulated as a continuous story.
Since 4000B.C.some Alpine people, coming originally from Asia Minor, had occupied the mountain zone, where they had erected their pile-dwellings and had cultivated their strips of cornlands. Meanwhile on the Russian steppes, east of the Dnieper, Nordic steppe-folk mounted on horses, were driving cattle from one pasture to another, sometimes dwelling in the open steppe, at others pasturing their beasts in the park-lands and woods to the north. Between these two peoples were the Tripolje-folk, living in pit-dwellings, cultivating the soil, and later on importing copper axes from Ægean traders.
About 3000B.C., or perhaps rather earlier, a drought caused some of the steppe-folk to emigrate. It was perhaps at this time, though probably later, that some passed through the woodland to the middle Volga valley, where, mixing with communities of Mongoloid fishers, they developed the Fationovo culture and became ancestors of the red Finns.[415]Others in small numbers certainly advanced towards the Baltic, and passing along its southern shore, appeared later at Furfooz, in Belgium.[416]The majority of these moved slowly up the Rhine valley, whence some entered Switzerland from the north, and made themselves lords of the lake-dwelling villages.Other steppe-folk seem also to have entered Hungary, probably through the Moravian gate, and settled on the plain and the eastern foothills of the mountain zone.
Meanwhile the knowledge of copper had been introduced by traders, who had sailed up the Adriatic, and travelled inland from Fiume. This copper culture reached the Swiss lake-dwellings, and eventually passed down the Rhone as far as Lyons. It was followed by a bronze culture, which was imported from Italy and the western Mediterranean.
About 2250B.C.another drought caused a dispersal of the steppe-folk on a greater scale. Some went east, into the remotest fastnesses of Turkestan, some perhaps as far as the head waters of the Yenesei and the region around Minutsinsk, while others passed on to the Iranian plateau. This last group we hear of about 2100B.C.as Kassites, and a few centuries later they conquered Mesopotamia.
Those who went westward seem to have destroyed the Tripolje culture and driven off its people, unless, indeed, they had already been driven away by the drought. The bands of steppe-folk divided, some passing north of the Carpathians and some going south by the shores of the Euxine. This last group crossed the Danube, and skirting the Balkan mountains arrived at the east end of Thrace. Here they divided, one band passing to the west by the shores of the Ægean and then southwards to Thessaly, where they frightened the inhabitants, who termed them Centaurs. The other band crossed the Hellespont, destroyed Hissarlik II., and passed on into the Anatolian plain, where in due course they organised the native Alpine population into the Hittite empire.
It is not so easy to follow the group which passed north of the Carpathians, but they seem to have followed the line of sandy heaths across Galicia into Silesia, then some, probably, entered Hungary through the Moravian gate, while others pushed into Bohemia. These last found there people who were either refugees from the Tripolje area or folk closely allied to them. These people, who had been accustomed to a type of cord vase, had found in Bohemia bell-beakers, which had arrived there via Italy from Spain. From a combination of both types of ware they had evolved the northern beaker. When the Nordic steppe-folk arrived from Silesia these Beaker-folk left, and passed northwards between the Rhine and the Weser, some going to Jutland and some to Holland. A few of the latter found a refuge in Great Britain.
In Central Europe, in the district we have called the Celtic cradle, we find two cultures growing up, one consisting of Alpine peasants under Nordic lords, which prevailed in the mountain zone; the other, more truly Nordic, and still pastoral and perhaps nomadic, was limited to the Hungarian plain. After a short interval of interruption, trading was resumed with their Italian neighbours by way of Fiume.
It is about this time that the Nordic steppe-folk of Hungary demanded larger and larger daggers, until at length the earliest leaf-shaped sword was evolved about 1500B.C.During the following years a few adventurers passed into the Friuli and the Venetian lands, perhaps to trade, or perhaps to settle. Others, few in number, seem to have visited the amber coast of the Baltic, and one, at least, died there and was buried in Schleswig-Holstein. About 1450B.C.Type B was evolved and spread over the mountain zone. It was carried by traders or invaders towards the Baltic, especially to Denmark. Since this type is found in considerable numbers in the north, and there continued its own local development for many years, we must admit that these swords were not taken there by mere adventurers, but by invaders, few in number, perhaps, who had gone north to Denmark, and perhaps further still, and settled, perhaps as a governing class, among the people they found there.
From 1400 to 1300B.C., while Type C was dominant, there appears to have been little movement. The exodus of fifty years earlier had perhaps given ample elbow room to those who were left behind. But soon after 1300B.C.we find two movements, more or less simultaneous, but going in opposite directions.
The first of these movements seems to have started from the valley of the Save, perhaps over the Predil pass into the Friuli, but more probably, as Peet[417]has suggested, through Bosnia and Herzegovina, and across the Adriatic into Italy. If the latter course were taken, the invaders landed not far from Ascoli Piceno, and most of them passed up the valley of the Trento, by the pass through which the Via Salaria afterwards ran, to the valley of the Velino. Here they settled in that fold of the Apennines between lakes Trasimene and Fucino, through which run, in opposite directions, the Velino and the upper waters of the Tiber. This band of invaders must have been a relatively small one, as the area they occupied is not extensive and was very sharply defined.
Sword from FinlandFIG. 25.—TYPE GSWORD FROM FINLAND.
FIG. 25.—TYPE GSWORD FROM FINLAND.
The other movement went to the east, and was probably that great emigration from Europe to Asia of which dim recollections survived among the Greeks, and which took the Briges into Asia Minor, where they became Phrygians.[418]It also carried to Thrace some, at any rate, of its red-haired people.[419]It was probably some stragglers from this group who passed southwards, like knight-errants destroying monsters and punishing evil doers, and who eventually became kings over the towns of Mycenean Greece. These were known later as Achæans, and may possibly have included also stragglers from the group which had passed over to Italy.
It was between 1200 and 1175B.C.that the next movement began, and this was mainly to the west and north. Some of these invaders left the Danube basin, crossed the Rhine, and passing through the Belfort gap, entered France, and over-ran the greater part of that country. Until the swords of this type have been catalogued and mapped, it will be impossible to trace their line of advance, or to determine how far they went. Some of these seem to have passed either down the Rhine or up the east of France, for they crossed over to Britain, landing for the most part in the Thames and by the Wash, or else at some intermediate points. They seem to have settled in the east of England, and subsequently in Wessex, but later waves of them evidently set out for Ireland, crossing Wales by the upper Severn valley and the Bala cleft. A considerable number of these seem to have settled in Ireland.
It was about this time that others set out from Hungary through the Moravian gate, and while some went northwards, the majority passed along Galicia, across the Bukovina and Podolia, and arrived at length by the banks of the Koban. Here they settled for a time, and entered into trade relations with a humble tribe, living on the southern slopes of the Caucasus, from whom they learned the knowledge of iron. Armed with swords with iron blades, they returned to the Danube basin about 1100B.C., and perhaps worked the iron mines at Gyalar, in Transylvania. Then they settled in the Hungarian plain and in the north of the Balkan peninsula. About 1050B.C.a large body of these people from the Koban passed southwards and descended the Vardar valley. By degrees they passed thence to Thessaly. Then they began that slow but steady conquest of the Greek states, which is known as the Dorian invasion.
A little later, about 1000B.C., the Koban folk, with their iron swords, began pushing up the Danube, the Drave and the Save. In the valley of the last they found whole mountains of iron, which they began to work, and by 900B.C., if not earlier, they had reached Styria and the Salzkammergut, and were working the salt mines at Hallstatt. It was, perhaps, earlier than this that they moved up the Danube valley as far as Ulm and Sigmaringen, and soon after their arrival there quarrels arose between them and the lords of the mountain zone. It must have been before 900B.C.that the newcomers destroyed the lake-dwellings and expelled their inhabitants, who fled from them to the north and west.
The refugees who went northwards were few in number, though some of them seem to have fled a long way, perhaps even to Finland. Large numbers escaped to France, and spread over most of that land except Brittany and the extreme west. But here they were followed by the men of the iron sword, who pursued them in every direction, except down the valley of the Seine.
A great number of these refugees reached Britain, landing mostly at the mouth of the Thames, and sailing up it as far as Reading. An important settlement was made at “Old England,” at the mouth of the Brent, and doubtless elsewhere by the Thames. They advanced across the south of England, where, as we have seen, some of their predecessors were living, and settled at All Cannings and doubtless other places in Wiltshire. They pushed on into South Wales, making settlements on the open hills above Cardiff. Some of these, too, reached Ireland.
Meanwhile the men of the iron sword, pursuing these refugees, followed them in every direction across France, except down the valley of the Seine. They went northwards down the valleys of the Meuse and Moselle, entered Belgium,[420]and perhaps even entered Denmark. There seems no evidence, however, that they crossed to Britain.
One further raid was made by the men of the iron sword, and this was on an extensive scale. Some time after 900B.C.a number of them, coming from the Savevalley, crossed the Predil pass. Some of these stayed for a time at Santa Lucia Tolmino, in the Isonzo valley, while the majority proceeded to Cividale in the Friuli plain. They passed on rapidly to the Po valley, and destroyed the villages of the Terramara-folk who lived there, expelling the inhabitants as seems to have been the invariable custom of these men of blood and iron.[421]The Terramara-folk fled, some to Etruria, others to Taranto and others again to Rome, where they built a dry terramara on the Palatine Hill.[422]The iron sword people passed on and settled at the foot of the Apennines, with their centre at Bologna, introducing into all the region north-east of the mountains the culture known to archæologists as that of Villa-nova.[423]
As we have seen in Chapter IV., the Etruscans had been for some little time settled in Tuscany, where they had established their trading cities governed by religious magistrates. Before long these Etruscan Prospectors found themselves face to face with this newly-arrived war-like people. I have already given my reasons for thinking that the Villa-nova folk conquered the Etruscans, and that together they extended their empire, which is said to have reached to Pompeii. They perhaps succeeded in pressing back the leaf-shaped sword people from the neighbourhood of Lake Trasimene, but did not apparently succeed at first in dislodging them from the valley of the Velino.
Thus we see that the leaf-shaped sword folk, mainly the people of the mountain zone, have at one time or another invaded and in some way or another conquered nearly all Europe except the Iberian peninsula, while at the close of the bronze age they arrived as refugees in Celtic lands. The iron sword folk, the people of the plain, who had learned the use of iron in the Koban, followed them, making a complete conquest of Greece, of Italy north of the Apennines, of France all but the west and the Seine valley, Belgium and perhaps other regions further north. These people did not conquer Scandinavia, nor did they reach Britain, at any rate until several more centuries had elapsed.
DURINGthe middle half of the nineteenth century the minds of many European savants were focussed upon what was termed the Aryan hypothesis, which was investigated with more enthusiasm than discretion by comparative philologists in England and France, and with still greater vigour in Germany. Since then the general conclusions of these mid-nineteenth century speculations have been current among politicians and journalists, who talk glibly about Teutons and Celts and Slavs, and that medley of races and peoples, who still continue to use in a modified form the speech imposed upon them by their Roman conquerors, and are therefore called the Latin race. Such terms, meaningless though they are as applied to nations, have become popular during the last half century, with disastrous results, since they have been used to emphasise certain divisions which were growing up among European peoples, and which in their turn did much to give rise to the European war, and are still retarding the Peace for which everyone is longing.
The idea was first put forward in 1786, when Sir William Jones,[424]in a communication to the Royal Asiatic Society of Bengal, pointed out the similarities between the Sanskrit, Greek, Latin, German and Celtic languages, but little progress was made until in 1833–5 Bopp[425]published his comparative grammar. For the next fifty years the hypothesis grew at a great pace. The world was anxious for a scientific classification of its peoples, especially of the peoples of Europe. Men were also enquiring what had happened in this continent before early Greek legend and literature began to lift the veil. The sciences of anthropology and prehistoric archæology were in their infancy, and unable to provide answers to these questions, and the comparativephilologists, from the evidence of language alone, were prepared to give full and most detailed explanations.
Thus arose the Aryan hypothesis, forced upon an eagerly inquiring public with great enthusiasm and complete, or almost complete, agreement. But during the eighties rifts appeared to disturb this harmony, anthropology and archæology began to claim a hearing, and to disagree with the conclusions of philology. By 1890 the philological enthusiasm died out, at least in this country and in France, though for a time it lingered on in Germany. All those acquainted with the subject felt that the question needed reconsideration, partly in the light of more accurate philological study, and especially having regard to the newer evidence being produced in such quantities by the sciences of anthropology and prehistoric archæology. The general public, however, continued to talk and to write, with more confidence than before, of Teutons, Celts, Slavs and the Latin races.
A word as to the term Aryan. When it was found that Sanskrit was allied to most of the European languages, it was felt that a term was needed to describe the group. Bopp, thinking that the German or Teutonic group was the most westerly, as the Indian dialects were the most easterly, used the term Indo-Germanic, which had previously been suggested by Klaproth in 1823.[426]But when it was fully realised that the Celtic tongues were also included in the group, French and Italian scholars, who felt that the term German was receiving too much prominence, suggested the name Indo-European. Neither of these terms is quite accurate and both are clumsy, so to avoid the latter defect Professor Max-Müller suggested the term Aryan. This, too, is misleading, for the Aryas were the noble caste among the Vedic Indians and the early Persians. The name, however, is convenient, and is still used by many people, especially in this country. Recently Dr. Giles[427]has suggested for the original people who spoke these tongues the name ofWiros, as words similar to this, meaningmen, occur in most of these languages. The term has much to recommend it, and it will be used in the following pages for the first users of this speech.
When the connection between these languages was first realised, it was felt that all the tongues had been derived from a primitive mother speech, and that this primitivespeech must have been spoken originally by a small group of people, the primitive Aryans, or, as we shall call them, the Wiros. But owing to loose thinking all the people who speak these languages to-day, as well as those who have spoken them in the past, were considered Aryans, and it was assumed that because their languages were related they were racially identical. As long as this applied only to European peoples no one raised any protest, but when Max-Müller asserted that the same blood runs in the veins of English soldiers as in the veins of the darkest Bengalese,[428]the Nordic spirit in this country, which, as we have seen, is prone to race exclusiveness, rose in its wrath, and the whole generalisation was questioned.
It was then shown that languages could be imposed by conquerors upon their subjects, and that there were instances on record of the reverse process taking place, as in the case of the Frankish invaders of Gaul and the Viking settlers in Normandy. People then, with equal lack of lucid thinking, ran to the opposite extreme and said, “there is now no Aryan race, and there never has been one.” To Penka[429]is due the credit of making the matter clear. He pointed out that Aryan blood is not co-extensive with Aryan speech. He showed that those who use the latter are of several distinct anthropological types, but he argued that the primitive Aryans or Wiros must have been of one type.
Penka’s contention seems eminently reasonable and, one would think, incontrovertible, for a group of languages, so closely resembling one another, must have grown up in a somewhat restricted area, among a people who had, during the formative period of the language, little intercourse with the outside world. The very conditions which would produce a specialised type of language, would, we may feel sure, have produced an equally specialised type of men, that is to say, a race in the anthropological meaning of the term.
The failure of Penka’s views to carry widespread conviction was, I am inclined to think, due to the fact that his theory involved the identification of the primitive Wiros with the Nordic race. There is really no valid objection to this view, and, as will be seen later, the evidence which I am adducing points to a similar conclusion. But, unfortunately, this theory became associated with certain political opinions, and so became distasteful to those with a different outlook.
The original supporters of the Aryan hypothesis fell so in love with the languages and with the people who originally developed them, that they grew to believe that these Wiros were superior creatures, with a superior tongue, which they had imposed upon an inferior world. All good things found in the civilisation of Europe were attributed to them, and they became the super-men. As far as we can ascertain from the linguistic evidence available they had, it is true, evolved a language which, owing to its flexibility, was capable of great things, but it is by no means clear that the higher developments, which some of the tongues have reached, would have been attained had not the Wiros mixed with people possessing other ideas and other idioms. The evidence of linguistic palæontology shows that in material culture they were very backward, and, as we shall see later on, all the archæological evidence tends to show that in these respects they were far behind the peoples whom they conquered, and on whom they imposed their tongue. Their one important characteristic seems to have been their incapacity for learning other languages, and so insisting that other folk should adopt theirs. This may have been due to lack of linguistic ability, or to an overbearing conceit. Probably it was due to both. The original Wiros, then, as judged by linguistic evidence, were far from being super-men.
Another fallacy has been the belief that the Nordic is the superior person, the “white man”par excellence. The Nordic is strong, robust and courageous, and possesses certain manly qualities which are much admired; also he has taken care for some thousands of years to impress upon his neighbours that these are admirable qualities. The Nordic has also other good points, such as honesty and a genius for administration, but he is far from possessing a monopoly of the virtues, and in many respects falls behind members of the other European races. The works of Gobineau[430]and later of Madison Grant[431]have enumerated his virtues without defining his limitations, and no one, so far as I know, has yet written to extol the excellencies of the Alpine or Mediterranean races, who have contributed and still contribute much of what is good in the make-up of modern Europe.
During the latter part of the nineteenth century the Germans were engaged in making and consolidating their empire, and to do this they wished to encourage theirnationals to believe that Germans,quaGermans, were the inheritors of many, in fact of most admirable qualities. As a matter of fact such “patriotic” ideas were current in most countries, as can be seen by an examination of the school text-books, especially history books, in use at that time, and sometimes, too, at the present day. Only in this, as is their wont, the Germans were very thorough, and they pressed every science and every hypothesis into their service.
What was read into the hypothesis of Penka, though it does not follow that he wished it, was that these Wiros or Aryan super-men were the same as the Nordic super-men, and that their home was in Germany, as could easily be proved from the pages of Tacitus. It was implied that from Germany had come all that was Aryan or Nordic or really valuable in the population of other countries, and that, therefore, the Aryan Nordic Germans were the salt of the earth. This view, which grew up insensibly from the hypothesis of Penka and others, was caught hold of by those who were wishing to transform the peaceful Alpine German into an aggressive militarist, and in its full absurdity was given to the world by a renegade Englishman, Herr Houston Chamberlain.[432]
Now, as we have seen, the original Wiros, though they had their good points, had by no means a monopoly of the virtues, and were enabled to spread their tongues largely by their incapacity and unwillingness to learn the speech of others. The Nordic is a picturesque and romantic figure, with many admirable qualities, but is seldom clever, skilful with his hands or patient in research. Lastly, an examination of the physical types, as they exist to-day in Germany, shows us that outside the former kingdom of Hanover, the Nordic type is rare.[433]There are probably as many pure Nordics in France, distributed over the northern departments from Dunkirk almost to the west of Brittany, as will be found in the German empire. There is this difference only between the populations of the two countries. In Germany the fair colouring of the Nordic element seems to be a dominant character over the relatively dark pigmentation of the Alpine; so we meet with a majority of people having broad Alpine heads but fair Nordic colouration. In France, on the other hand, there is a large Mediterranean element, surviving from neolithic days, and the brunette colouring of this race is more dominant than the blondness of the Nordic. As all three types have mingled in France, fair hair is less frequently found among those with broad heads.
The use made of the Aryan Nordic equation by German political propagandists has inclined, French and, to some extent, English writers, to reject this view. This objection has been in a large measure due to misunderstandings, and in any case it is unscientific to allow national and political prejudices to influence our opinions on such questions.
If, then, we agree with Penka that there must have been an original Aryan race, or, as we shall call them, Wiros, it is important to ascertain what part of the world it was, from which these languages spread to Ireland and Bengal. This is the problem of the Aryan cradle.
In the early days of the hypothesis students noted that Sanskrit was the most archaic of the languages, and forgetting that the Vedic hymns were composed 1000 or 1500B.C., while the earliest Greek literature dated from 800 or 900B.C., there was a tendency to derive the whole group from North India.[434]Subsequently, when the close connection between Sanskrit and Zend, the ancient Persian tongue, was recognised, and it was realised that the Vedic folk were recent arrivals in the Punjab when the Vedic hymns were being composed, the Aryan cradle was removed to the region watered by the Oxus and the Jaxartes, and the slopes of the Hindu Kush.[435]
Here the cradle remained for a long time. Pott, hypnotised by his aphorismex oriente lux, drew a wonderful picture of the westward advance of the Wiros from their eastern home. Others filled in, largely from their own imaginations, the remaining details. And so we get the mid-nineteenth century view of these Aryan super-men, with a language containing potentialities of all that is fine in literature, with a social organisation and morality which was to reform benighted Europe, worshipping deities which were the products either of solar or chthonic myths or of diseases of language, setting forth from the western slopes of the Himalayanmassif, urged on “by an irresistible impulse” towards the setting sun, migrating westward and ever westward, carrying their wives and families in the famous Aryan cart provided for them by a distinguished anthropologist.[436]Such was the view unanimously held by all Europe, and which figures still in too many text-books. One man only was left crying in the wilderness, or at least in the steppe, and he was an Englishman. As Hehn[437]wrote in 1874,“so it came to pass that in England, the native land of fads, there chanced to enter into the head of an eccentric individual the notion of placing the cradle of the Aryan race in Europe.”
Those of us who live “in that land of fads” may well be proud of Dr. Latham, who advanced these views in 1851, and subsequently enlarged upon them.[438]In due course nearly all other philologists followed suit, and Max-Müller alone was unrepentent, and as late as 1887 wrote “I should still say, as I said forty years ago, ‘Somewhere in Asia,’ and no more.”[439]But by then the Asiatic cradle had gone to the limbo of exploded hypotheses.
In 1868 Benfey, in a preface to Fick’s work,[440]acknowledged the value of Latham’s protests, and, arguing for the first time from the type of evidence known as linguistic palæontology, advocated a European as distinguished from an Asiatic cradle, and suggested, as Latham had done earlier, the region north of the Black Sea. He was followed in 1871 by Geiger,[441]who with national pride wished to prove that the super-man had always lived in the plain of North Germany, to which, some years later, Piètrement[442]retorted by suggesting that Geiger’s arguments would apply equally well to the neighbourhood of Lake Balkash and the Ala-tau mountains.
In the same year in which Geiger’s work appeared Cuno made a notable contribution to the hypothesis.[443]He contended that the original undivided Wiros were not a small clan, but must have been a numerous, nomad pastoral people, inhabiting an extensive steppe region. For the evolution of the parent tongue with its elaborate grammar a long period, several thousands of years, must have been needed, and during this time the Wiros must have moved freely over the area of the cradle, having frequent intercourse with one another, but little or none with outsiders. These conditions, he thought, could only be obtained on a vast plain, undivided by lofty mountain barriers or impassable forests; this cradle must have been in a temperate climate, tolerably uniform in character, where there would have been ample room for the growth of a numerous people. Such an area can only be found in the great plain of Northern Europe, stretching from the north of France to the Ural mountains.
Further investigation has shown that much of this plain was filled with dense forests and impassable morasses, but that the open steppe begins in Russia, and extends uninterruptedly to the slopes of the Hindu Kush, with certain westward prolongations, especially the sandy heaths to the north of the Carpathians, stretching from the Russian steppe, across Galicia, to the neighbourhood of Breslau. North of this, too, is a belt of parkland, opening on to the steppe, where nomad herdsmen could drive their cattle when the grass of the steppe became burnt up. Here, it would seem, was an area which would meet the needs of the linguistic palæontologist, and it was in this region that the Aryan cradle was placed by Dr. Schrader in 1883,[444]and here it has remained without opposition until quite recently.
During the last few months there has appeared the first volume of the Cambridge History of India, to which Dr. Peter Giles had contributed a chapter on the Aryans.[445]In this, in which he has repeated his suggestion that these people should in future be called Wiros, he has put forward views which differ in material respects from those hitherto held. His suggestion is, in fact, that the Aryan cradle is to be sought for in the plain of Hungary.
In contradistinction to views previously advanced, he believes that the original Wiros were settled agriculturists and not nomad herdsmen.[446]He bases this conclusion, apparently, on the fact that they knew of corn. A careful study of all the evidence on this subject collected by Schrader[447]convinces me, however, that it is far from certain that the undivided Wiros were acquainted with cultivated grain, for the terms used, few if any of which run through all the languages, may well apply to wild grain, and oats grow wild on the Russian steppe,[448]and may well have been used as food for man and beast. Moreover it is not an unknown thing for nomad people to grow scratch crops of grain. Such crops of barley I have myself seen grown by nomad Bedawin in the clay deserts behind Alexandria. The steppe-folk, too, like most nomads, were probably in the habit of making occasional raids on the settled lands on their margin, and we have actual evidence that this occurred. We know also that settled cultivators were living both at Tripolje and at Anau on the edge of the steppe. The original Wiro word forgrain might well be the name they used for this kind of booty, nor need we exclude the possibility that when times were hard they acquired grain by trade from their settled neighbours, as Abraham, a nomad steppe-man, purchased corn from Egypt. The argument from the words for grain seems indecisive, and the balance of the evidence cited by Schrader seems in favour of a nomad existence.
Dr. Giles feels that “the close similarity between the various languages spoken by them would lead us to infer that they must have lived for long in a severely circumscribed area, so that their peculiarities developed for many generations in common.”[449]This, as we have seen, was Cuno’s idea, and is an eminently sound conclusion. But Dr. Giles would see in this circumscribed area one surrounded with a ring of mountains, while Cuno thought that it demanded an extensive steppe. The difference between the two views seems to depend upon whether the Wiros were nomad or settled, and I have already given reasons for believing them to have been nomads.
Dr. Giles objects to the steppe-cradle. He gives as his reason that this region has not on the whole the characteristics required by the conclusions drawn from linguistic palæontology;[450]on the other hand Schrader, who has studied this side of philology more exhaustively than most inquirers, believes that the conditions are fulfilled.[451]Neither argument is perhaps conclusive, and both deserve serious attention; the decision must rest upon evidence drawn from those other sciences which deal with the far past.
We have found reason for believing that in neolithic days the Russian steppe east of the Dnieper was inhabited by a nomad steppe-folk, who had domesticated horses and cattle, and perhaps sheep. As they lived on a plain they had probably not met with the goat, which is a mountain beast, and it is to be noted that the name for goat varies in nearly all the Wiro languages.[452]These nomad steppe-folk, who buried their dead in a contracted position covered with red ochre under kurgans or barrows, were, we believe, Nordic or proto-Nordic in type, and some, at least, of their skeletons remind us of the Brünn-Brux-Combe Capelle type,[453]who hunted horses in late Aurignacian and Solutrean times.
The state of civilisation and the area of distribution of those nomad steppe-folk exactly corresponds with the requirements of the early Wiros as postulated by Schrader, though it differs in some respects from those demanded by Giles. On the other hand, in Magdalenian and Azilian times, and perhaps during the earlier phases of the neolithic age, the ancestors of these people may well have lived in the Hungarian plain, and we have seen how some of them survived in Switzerland, at Chamblandes, well into neolithic times.[454]
It is possible, then, that the circumscribed area, though not the settled agricultural condition, demanded by Dr. Giles, may have been true in the later phases of the upper palæolithic age. This, however, he will not agree to, for he is persuaded that thehiatus, assumed by the earlier archæologists, still exists, and that the upper palæolithic age, as well as the lower, preceded the last ice age and belongs to a very remote past.
Some archæologists, it is true, still hold to these views, and this inflated chronology has not yet been abandoned by all. During the last few years, however, the shorter dating[455]has become more generally accepted, and this brings the whole of the neanthropic period into relatively recent times, and gives us a continuous history from the Aurignacian period to the present day. If Dr. Giles could be persuaded to accept these more modern views on palæolithic chronology, many of his difficulties would be removed, and he might agree to place the Hungarian cradle of the Wiros in the latter part of the upper palæolithic age.
Dr. Giles raises objections also to the continuity of the Russio-Turkestan steppe, and maintains that a connection between South Russia and the east, north of the Black Sea, would have been impossible.[456]He is, therefore, disposed to take the Wiros to Persia and India by way of Asia Minor.
The great objection which he cites to the northern passage is the existence of the barren Ust Urt desert. Also the fact that the Caspian has steadily been becoming more shallow and contracting in area. These two points, if true, to some extent contradict one another. It is true, doubtless, that at one time the Caspian had covereda greatly extended area, but it is not so clear that its contraction has been a steady progress. We have already seen, from the evidence cited by Ellsworth Huntington,[457]that this contraction and expansion has probably been intermittent. In any case, the contraction has been due to light rainfall, and it is this light rainfall which has produced the desert condition of the Ust Urt. When the Caspian expanded, it was because of increased precipitation, when such parts of the Ust Urt as were not inundated would have been a grassy steppe.
Dr. Giles suggests that at one time the Caspian and Aral seas were one great inland sea, and that such was at one time the case is implied by extracts from the writings of Herodotus.[458]But though this was almost certainly the case during periods of relatively heavy rainfall, the level would have to have risen well above the 200 metre contour to have obstructed the passage between the Russian and Turkestan steppes. Such a rise is quite unthinkable during the last 6000 years, for had the surface been raised 220 feet above the present sea level the Caspio-Aral Sea would have been connected with the Euxine.[459]Even had the impossible occurred and the 200 metre contour been reached it would have been quite easy to pass from one steppe area to another, by crossing the southern slopes of the Urals, which are raised very little above the plain and would form no obstacle to nomad tribes.
The Anatolian passage was by no means an easy route to the east, for had the Wiros kept to the north they would have found difficulty in crossing the Armenian mountains; further south they would have come into contact with the peoples of Mesopotamia, and we should have found evidence of their presence. That some of them passed this way about 2200B.C.we have already seen, but others had passed eastwards earlier, apparently by a different route, for otherwise it is difficult to account for the presence of the Kassites on the Iranian plateau in the time of Hammurabi. The complete absence of any evidence of a movement eastward from the Hungarian plain in neolithic days, and the fact that any such movement would have been compelled to cross the area occupied by the settled Tripolje-folk, seem to be fatal to the literal acceptance of this hypothesis.
Taking all factors, anthropological and archæological, geographical and linguistic, into consideration, and in spite of the difference in opinion expressed by Dr. Giles, whose authority to pronounce on the linguistic data all must acknowledge, I am venturing to identify the nomad steppe-folk with the primitive Wiros, while admitting the possibility that the beginnings of their language may date back to Magdalenian and Azilian times, when they may have been living surrounded by the Carpathian ring.
WEhave seen that with one notable exception, little attempt has been made to explain the early history of the Wiros since 1889, and the position of the Aryan hypothesis has remained stationary.[460]It is true that fresh evidences of such languages have been discovered in the uplands of Asia, and a new group, known as Tocharian,[461]have been identified. Certain affinities to the group have also been noted in the Hittite language, which has been claimed by some writers to be a true Wiro tongue.[462]But this view has not received general acceptance. Little use, however, has been made of this fresh evidence towards solving the problem of the Aryan cradle.
But early in 1891 an important communication was made to the Philological Society by Professor, afterwards Sir, John Rhys.[463]This paper raised a storm of hostile criticism, especially in Germany,[464]and its conclusions have not found favour in philological circles. As, however, some of Sir John’s conclusions coincide in certain particulars with the reconstruction offered in the previous pages, based on other evidence, the thesis demands reconsideration.
To summarise briefly, Rhys pointed out that the Celtic languages, now confined to the north-western fringe of Europe, fell naturally into two well-defined groups. One of these, the Gaelic, or as he preferred to call it the Goidelic, was spoken in Ireland, North-West Scotland and the Isle of Man. The other, formerly called Cymric, but by Rhys styled Brythonic, was spoken in Wales, Cornwall and Brittany. There are several marked differences between these two groups of languages, the most important beingthat the C in the Goidelic, which represents an earlier Q or Qu, is replaced in Brythonic by a P or perhaps a B. Thus the Celtic languages fall into two well-defined groups which may be called the Q and P dialects.
Rhys pointed out, too, that in the Italian peninsula the same phenomenon appeared. In Latin, and the dialects most closely allied to it, Q or Qu was found, while in the Umbrian forms of speech, used over the greater part of the peninsula this sound was replaced by P. Thus there were Q and P dialects in Italy also.
He further pointed out that the Greek language, with certain exceptions, was a true P dialect, for the Latinequuscorresponded to the Greek ἱππὁς. He suggested, however, that the Ionic dialect used by Herodotus and Hippocrates, which frequently had a κ where the standard Greek had a π,[465]was a descendant of a form of Q speech, but that the Qu had degenerated into κ, as it had into C in Goidelic.
Further, he pointed out that the Q dialects, Goidelic, Latin and Ionic Greek, formed so to speak an outer ring, while Brythonic, Umbrian and standard Greek lay within them. He argued from this that these tongues had spread in two waves from a common centre, which he fixed in the mountain zone of Central Europe, and thence the Q tongues had spread by invasion, to be followed some few centuries later by a second invasion of P people, who had driven the Q people further from the original home.
He suggested that the change of Q into P had been effected by a conquering group of aliens, who had adopted the Wiro tongue from their subjects, but retained some details of the phonological laws of their original language, which accounted for this labialisation. He further suggested that these alien invaders were the Alpine inhabitants of the Swiss lake-dwellings.[466]
This paper was received with hostile criticism and derision, especially by some German students of Celtic tongues.[467]It had little better reception in France, and the British and Irish Celtic scholars, with a few exceptions, treated the idea with contempt. The theory has never received the consideration and fair criticism which a paper from so eminent an authority on Celtic languages deserved.
The main facts as to the Celtic and Italic dialects are not in dispute. There can be no question that in both of those areas both Q and P groups are or were in existence,and that the Q are in the outer and the P in the inner ring. With regard to Greek however, the case is different, and it is generally considered that the dialect of Herodotus and Hippocrates is purely local and not necessarily primitive, and it has been pointed out that had the original Ionic dialect been a Q tongue, signs of this would have been apparent in Homer. It is also becoming more common to consider Greek as having closer affinities with Persian than with Italic or Celtic, though one wonders whether this connection is not being exaggerated as the pendulum swings from the over-estimated resemblance formerly recognised between the two languages of the Classical world.
We must, however, agree that the Greek part of Rhys’ hypothesis will not stand, at least without considerable emendation, nor have we found from our archæological investigations any reasons for believing that the Alpine inhabitants of the Swiss lake-dwellings over-ran as conquerors the surrounding regions. The evidence, in fact, points in an opposite direction. The deletion of these two points is not fatal to the hypothesis, and we may still consider that there is, on philological evidence, aprima-faciereason for believing that from somewhere in Central Europe, from the area which we have termed the Celtic cradle, two waves of invaders, of Wiro speech if not of Wiro race, set out in various directions, that the Q was the earlier and the P the later, and that both entered Italy and the Celtic lands.
We may further admit the possibility or even the probability, that an alien element, not necessarily non-Wiro, had entered the Celtic cradle before the departure of the second wave, and that it was to this alien element that the labialisation was due. Lastly, we may admit that, though evidence of the Q wave into Greece is non-proven, there is no doubt of the arrival of the P people, but these P people spoke a tongue showing greater affinities with Iranian speech, especially in their names for weapons and other warlike paraphernalia,[468]than is to be recognised in the other P tongues.
Now we have seen from the study of archæological evidence that the men of the leaf-shaped sword passed at one time into Italy, where they settled near Lake Fucino, and a little later some entered the Celtic lands of the west, while earlier a few adventurers reached Greek lands. Later some refugees from the mountain zone reached many partsof France and the British Isles. All these seem to have come from the same Celtic cradle and to have been of the same racial type or, to speak more accurately, types. Later still, we have seen that the Koban folk, who had learned the use of iron in the neighbourhood of the Caucasus, returned to the Danube valley, after which some of them entered Greece as Dorians, while others entered Italy with the Villa-nova culture and a third group pursued their predecessors over all parts of France except the Seine valley. It seems possible, if not probable, that these two waves of invasions may have been those which brought Q and P speech respectively into these different parts of Europe. If this equation be accepted, the main features of Sir John Rhys’ hypothesis have been proved. But it will not be wise to jump too hastily to a conclusion, for the fact that there were two waves of invaders and two of Wiro dialects may be only a coincidence. We must attempt to apply a confirmatory test.
In Greece we have seen that Casson has shown good cause why we should believe that the advance of the men with the iron sword should be equated with the Dorian invasion. The Dorians spoke a P dialect and may well have been the first to introduce such a tongue into Greece. We have seen how Rhys’ view that Q dialects survive in the writings of Herodotus and Hippocrates is open to question, but we have also noted that Wace had equally questioned the “Achæan” invasion proposed by Ridgeway. I have already put forward an amended scheme for the latter, and suggested the arrival of only a few Nordic adventurers. Had these been Wiros of Q speech, they could not, owing to the paucity of their numbers, have imposed their tongue upon their subjects. If, therefore, we accept the equation for Greek lands, we need not expect to find evidence of the survival of Q speech in Greece in the fifth century.
But I have suggested that these “Achæan” adventurers were stragglers from the band of Nordics who were responsible for the Phrygian invasion of Asia Minor. If the equation, which we are endeavouring to prove, were true, we should expect that the Phrygian language was of the Q form. Unfortunately we know little of the Phrygian tongue even in the palmy days of Athens, still less of its form in the thirteenth century.