Modern Geography Part 8

The earliest man who has left traces in Europe is he of the Palaeolithic Period, or Old Stone Age, a hunter and cave-dweller without domesticated animals, whose traces are especially found in southern Europe. No traces of his presence have yet been found in Scandinavia or in Scotland, where the climatic conditions perhaps made his existence impossible. Not much is known of this early race, but it seems to have been long-headed, and was probably dark. It is no longer believed that there was a complete rupture between the culture of the Palaeolithic period, with its unpolished stone implements, and that of the Neolithic age, with its polished implements, but the relations of the two remain somewhat uncertain. The remains of the Neolithic period are much more extensive and enable us to draw much more satisfactory conclusions as to racial characters. We shall describe briefly some of these Neolithic remains as they appear in Great Britain.

Before doing this, however, it is necessary to say a few words about the means of recognising different races of men. The criterion most employed is that of head form, and especially what is known as the cephalic index, that is, the ratio between the breadth of the skull between the ears and its length from front to back. The ratio is expressed as a percentage, the length being taken as 100, and the breadth stated as a fraction of it. When the index rises above 80, the skull is said to be brachycephalic, or rounded; when it is below 75, the skull is long, or dolichocephalic. The Italian anthropologist, Sergi, adopts another cla.s.sification of skulls, based upon the shape, but this is only a refinement of the ordinary distinction between long and round skulls.

Another important character, which, like the shape of the skull, can be measured either in the living person or in the skeleton, is the height, which has some racial significance. A third character, of much importance, is the colouring of the skin, eyes and hair. This can only be inferred in the case of pre-historic peoples. Finally, the shape of the features, especially of the nose, has some racial significance.

In the west of Great Britain generally, and extending northwards to Orkney, there occur the burying-places of a Neolithic people, which have yielded abundant remains, including skeletons. The cairns, tumuli, or barrows of this people are recognised by their elongated shape, by the fact that they are chambered, and by the contained skeletons, which are always those of a dolichocephalic people. "Long barrows, long skulls" is an anthropological rule for England and Scotland, no less than for the other parts of Europe in which these tumuli occur. The skeletons within the barrows show no marks of fire, so that inhumation not cremation was practised, and a very curious feature found in Scotland, in Sicily, in Egypt and elsewhere, in tombs supposed to be of similar age, is that the body is usually placed in a doubled-up position. The position corresponds to the pre-natal position of the human infant, and this method of burial is supposed to imply some belief in a future life--is a record of a nave hope that man could "enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born again."

Graves of this type, containing the skeletons of long-headed men, believed to be of the race which we have called Mediterranean, occur not only in western Great Britain, but also in France, in Scandinavia, in Germany, in the Mediterranean basin, and elsewhere. There seems reason to believe that they prove that in Neolithic times the Mediterranean race was widely distributed, especially in the west; it seems, further, tolerably certain that Mediterranean man himself was an immigrant from the north of Africa, and established himself first in the Mediterranean basin.

The members of this race have now, and apparently have always had, the following characters:--The skull is markedly dolichocephalic, the skin tends to be brown, the eyes and hair are dark, the stature is medium and the build slight, and the nose is rather broad.

According to Prof. Sergi there are four great stocks of this race; of these, one remained within Africa, and has been known under various names, the ancient Egyptians, the Libyans, the Berbers being all of this stock. The other three stocks invaded Europe, entering by the three natural routes which present themselves, that is, by the three regions where the sea is most easily crossed. The most western group, the Iberians, crossed, as we have seen, _via_ Gibraltar, and occupied the Iberian peninsula. The next group, the Ligurians, found an entrance into Europe _via_ Sicily, and pa.s.sing up into Italy extended westwards along the Riviera, till they encountered the Iberians in southern France.

Finally, the third group, the Pelasgians, reached Greece by means of the islands of that part of the Mediterranean. It still remains uncertain whether an earlier migration still had peopled Europe with Palaeolithic man, who, on this theory, would belong also to the Mediterranean race, or whether the immigrant African race displaced some earlier unrelated population. In any case, it is tolerably certain that the first peopling of Europe on any considerable scale was the result of this immigration of Mediterranean man.

He doubtless first established himself on the margin of the great sea, and there became thoroughly suited to his environment. Later he spread northwards, being no doubt especially attracted by the relatively mild climate of the west, by what has been called the "winter gulf of warmth" which extends over north-western Europe.

Whatever was the cause of his northward trend, however, Mediterranean man does not appear to have been left long in undisturbed possession of his acquired territory. In Scotland, in the Clyde valley, which is typical of many other parts of Europe, round barrows or cairns are found side by side with the long ones. These are of later origin, as is shown by the nature of the pottery, by the occurrence of ornaments, and especially by the presence of bronze weapons--a great advance upon stone. The skeletons in these cairns mostly show marks of fire, suggesting that cremation was practised, and the skulls are those of a round-headed race. "Round barrows mean round skulls" is a second anthropological maxim for Britain.

These barrows are the first traces of the second great European race, called Alpine, Celtic, Eurasiatic, or Celto-Slavic by different anthropologists. The members of this race are of medium height, but are more stoutly built than Mediterranean man. Though generally resembling him in the coloration of hair and eyes, they are lighter in tint, the hair tending to be chestnut-coloured, and the eyes hazel grey, instead of both being very dark as in the former race. The nose, though variable, is in living types usually rather broad, and the special feature is of course the round head and broad face. As one of the names given indicates, this race is supposed by most anthropologists to have been of Asiatic origin.

Where the two sets of barrows occur there are indications that the incoming race greatly influenced the culture of the old. The use of bronze must have given its members an enormous advantage in the struggle for existence, and they seem to have imposed their customs, burial and other, and apparently also their language, on the older race.

This conflict of races which has left its traces in the Clyde valley apparently occurred in other parts of Europe. Everywhere the new race imposed its language and its customs upon the old, and everywhere its appearance is a.s.sociated with a change and a rise in culture. It is presumed by the majority that this Alpine race brought with it the use of bronze, and was therefore at a higher level than Mediterranean man, but Prof. Sergi believes that the appearance of bronze and of the new race simultaneously was a mere coincidence, and that the Mediterranean race itself originated the use of metals. Meantime there is no means of deciding this question, which in any case is not of supreme importance, but what seems clear is that everywhere, except in the Mediterranean basin, the new race pressed the old one hard, whether by its skill in the arts of peace or in those of war remains uncertain. Even in the Mediterranean the old languages went down before that of Alpine man.

In the Mediterranean area the new-comers seized the upland regions, that is, as we have suggested, the regions of pasture, and ousted the longheads permanently from them. In Spain and Portugal, perhaps because of the vicinity of the reservoir of the race in North Africa, Mediterranean man kept his hold, and the brachycephalic forms did not succeed in obtaining much foothold. But they are strongly represented in parts of southern France. In southern Italy, in Sicily, Corsica and Sardinia Mediterranean man largely kept out the intruders, though they appear again on the Alpine slopes of the north of Italy. But in the eastern Mediterranean the dark longheads are hard pressed and have kept little save the seaboard from the broadheads.

Outside the Mediterranean area, the success of Alpine man was more checkered, but we are met with the difficulty that here a third race supervened later, so that existing conditions are not necessarily comparable to earlier conditions.

At the present time Alpine man occupies almost all the upland and therefore relatively infertile regions of France, especially Savoy and the Dauphiny, the central uplands, and parts (not the whole) of Brittany. Outliers of this race also occur in other regions, _e. g._ in parts of the Saone valley, which is not infertile. In Great Britain, despite their first success, the broadlands have left little trace on the existing population. We thus see the absurdity of talking about British Celts, for Celts in the true sense are almost extinct in Britain though their language remains and is spoken by types of Mediterranean man as well as by others. In Scandinavia Alpine man was more successful, for he has left traces in various parts, especially on the coast of Norway. Throughout Belgium and in Southern Germany the broad-headed element in the population is very strong, while in Austria, the Balkan States and Russia this race predominates and is no longer confined to elevated or infertile regions. This increase in numbers and in dominance towards the east is one of the facts which lead anthropologists to believe that Alpine man is of Asiatic origin.

We shall return to him in a moment, but meantime it is necessary to speak of the third element in Europe, the race variously called Nordic, Teutonic, or even Germanic, in spite of the fact that many Germans belong to the Alpine race. The members of this race are remarkable for their tall stature, for their long skulls and face, for their blue eyes and fair hair, their light complexions, and their narrow aquiline noses.

The resemblance in skull form leads many anthropologists to regard them as derived from a common stock with the Mediterranean race, but the race seems to have originated in Europe. The place and date of its origin are still quite uncertain. It is possible that it was produced from an early form of the Mediterranean race in adaptation to the moist climate of western Europe. Ripley gives Scandinavia as the probable place of origin, but meantime there can be no certainty.

What we do know is that this race shows as perfect an adaptation to the climate of forest-clad temperate Europe as Mediterranean man does to the dry climate of that region. Just as the border of the Mediterranean is the province of Mediterranean man, and has been his for countless ages, so north-western Europe is the almost unchallenged possession of Nordic man. Between the two, along the great wedge of uplands, is the land of Alpine man, which widens to the east, his original home. Just as Mediterranean man in the days of his prime pushed north wherever conditions permitted, so Nordic man has pushed south, across the Alpine barrier, both in the literal and anthropological sense, and has left traces of his coming even within the territory of Mediterranean man.

Just as the dark-haired Welsh and the dark-haired strain of Scottish Highlanders bear witness to the old exploits of Mediterranean man, so do the fair-haired, tall-statured Lombards bear witness to the former activity of Nordic man. Nevertheless, the main territory of the two races is widely separated.

The relation of these two types, at least, to their zones of distribution is relatively easy to explain. Mediterranean man is highly susceptible to diseases of the breathing-organs to which the fair-haired Nordic type is more resistant. Here is one possible explanation of their command of their respective habitats, and there are many others.

The forest-dwelling Nordic type, as Prof. Penck points out, must necessarily have had the family as the unit, for only by dwelling in small family groups can primitive man war against the forest.

Mediterranean man, with his early use of irrigation, had necessarily to evolve a larger unit, for irrigation means extensive co-operation, so that political organisations would arise early in the Mediterranean. We can hardly doubt that these two facts had some bearing on the survival rate of the two races. The Nordic race with their strong family life, and with their abundant pasturage, had doubtless a relatively low death-rate among the children, though, as Prof. Myres points out, the struggle in adult life must have been keen. In the Mediterranean, as he also notes, the dry summer means difficulties with the water supply, difficulties in sanitation, and the risk of pestilence, which, with the abundant supply of fruit and the absence or scarcity of milk, has probably always meant a very high death-rate among the children. But the fact that the struggle for existence among adults was much less keen than among the forest folk, perhaps prevented this high infantile death-rate from being a great handicap. Once the geographical surroundings of the two peoples were changed by migration, the qualities which aided them to survive in their native habitat might become a positive hindrance. In brief, as two types evolved in harmony with well-defined geographical conditions, the very perfectness of their respective adaptations would hinder either from appropriating the territory of the other, while leaving a considerable margin for struggle on the debatable land between the two geographical regions.

If it seems at the present day that the Nordic race has more than pa.s.sed the Mediterranean in the race of life, we must remember that the fact that coal is chiefly found in the territory of the former, has given it an enormous economic advantage in recent times, an advantage which it may not be able to keep.

The Alpine race presents a much more difficult problem. We have said nothing here of the so-called Aryan problem, because the whole conception of an Aryan race advancing from Asia with a ready-made culture, and imposing it upon a barbarian Europe, is somewhat out of date, and much that has been written on the subject of the Aryans preceded in time the disentanglement of the complex problems presented by European races. But with all deductions made, the incoming Asiatic race which we have called Alpine presents many curious problems. It seems probable that the languages of Europe are largely due to the grafting of Alpine or Eurasian tongues upon the different tongues already spoken by Mediterranean man. We have still in Britain a Celtic language, though it is spoken by people of Mediterranean characters, and it is an extraordinary fact that a people should impose its language and culture upon another race, and yet be itself unable to keep its footing among that race.

It has been suggested that the new-comers, in Britain at least, were never more than an aristocracy, and that they disappeared by the mingling of their blood with the indigenous people, after having long dominated them. That is, it was as if we might suppose that the British population in India was cut off from the mother country, and ultimately disappeared owing to intermarriage, while their language and their customs remained in greatly modified form and replaced the existing languages and customs.

The difficulties in regard to this hypothesis are twofold. In the first place, such a hypothesis of mingling seems inconsistent with the extraordinary persistency which this race has manifested in other parts of Europe, where it came into contact with the same races as in Britain; and, second, the position of the Alpine race in western Europe generally, its virtual limitation to relatively infertile land, seems inconsistent with the notion that it ever formed an aristocracy, apart from and above the other races. To-day in Germany it is so far from occupying the position of an aristocracy that it sometimes forms the lower cla.s.ses to a Nordic dominant cla.s.s, though the Alpine race is sometimes stated to be better adapted to town life than the Nordic.

Of the three races, Mediterranean man seems to be perfectly adapted to a dry region, with deficient pasture, naturally clothed with a drought-resisting type of forest. As he prospered he spread beyond his own region, with the result that he reached a region markedly different in climate and vegetation from his own, to which his adaptation was never very perfect. Where, as in Ireland and western Great Britain, the conditions permitted the natural growth of some of the Mediterranean plants, there his hold was fairly firm, elsewhere it must always have been loose and uncertain.

Into a Europe thus peopled, with probably large vacant s.p.a.ces, came a pastoral type of man from Asia, certainly a transporter, if not an originator, of a higher culture, best fitted for a region of pasture land, but better fitted than Mediterranean man to withstand cold. He filled the s.p.a.ces which Mediterranean man could not fill, and pressed him hard in many places. Ultimately the forest region of Europe evolved its own type, perhaps from some aberrant strain of Mediterranean man, and this type, perfectly fitted to the forest regions, conquered the north and west, driving Alpine man up to the hills, and largely displacing Mediterranean man except where distinctively Mediterranean influences prevailed.

To the east, as the European forest dies away into the steppes of Asia, Nordic man can no longer compete successfully with Alpine man, and diminishes in numbers and in strength.

Thus while in Germany the tendency is for the tall, fair longheads of the north to dominate the short, darker broadheads of the south, further to the east this same broad-headed race, under the banner of Panslavism, strives, not unsuccessfully, to dominate the longheads of Finland and elsewhere.

Thus below and beneath the warfare of race is the contrast of physical conditions, which have produced the various types of man, no less than of plants and animals, and from which man cannot fully emanc.i.p.ate himself.

The New World was first colonised by Mediterranean man, but later all the European races contributed their part to its peopling. When we add a strong negro element in the southern United States, a remnant of the original Indian population, and an infusion of eastern races, it is obvious that the mingling of blood which has apparently produced good results in Europe, is being carried out on a much more elaborate scale across the Atlantic.

One other point may be touched upon. We have shown that the nations of Europe are not races in the pure sense. But, at the same time, it may be noted that in the western nations one or other of the two chief races tends to predominate at the expense of the other.

Thus broadly we may say that the antagonism between the French and German nationalities is fed by the fact that in race, in culture, in tradition, the one is predominantly Mediterranean, and the other predominantly Teutonic. In the Iberian peninsula, as we have seen, the Mediterranean strain enormously predominates, while in the countries of the north-west the Teutonic race tends to overbalance the other.

CHAPTER IX

THE DISTRIBUTION OF MINERALS AND THE LOCALISATION OF INDUSTRIES AND OF TOWNS

The distribution of minerals over the surface of the earth is much less obvious phenomenon than that of plants and animals, but it has always been of great importance in determining the distribution of man and his settlements. Except in the most primitive communities man must have tools and implements; probably never since he became man has he been without weapons. The first sign of emergence from the rudest barbarism is the use of metals, instead of stone or bone, to construct these tools and weapons and the necessity for finding the metals best suited to his use at each stage of civilisation has always influenced the movements and settlements of man. The existence of useful metals in a particular area must always attract population to that spot, and it is obvious in the case of Australia, of California, and later of Alaska, how strong the attractive power of metals is, even when the other conditions are distinctly unfavourable. As metals have always had this attractive power, the study of their distribution must always be important to the geographer.

We have seen that the first men whose remains have been preserved in Europe used only implements of stone, but that at a later state bronze was used, and corresponded to a marked rise in civilisation, as shown by the improved pottery, the nature of the ornaments used, and so on.

Now bronze is not a metal but an alloy or mixture of two metals, copper and tin. This alloy is very hard, and possesses qualities which make it more valuable for weapons and tools than the relatively soft metal copper. But we can hardly suppose that the first metal-workers discovered, immediately after they had learnt how to smelt metals, that a mixture of metals was more useful than a pure one. In point of fact, it is clear that in some places, at least, the age of bronze was preceded by a period when developing man used pure copper for his implements.

Our word copper is derived from the name of the island of Cyprus, which is particularly rich in copper ores. In this island they were smelted at a very early date, the process being aided by two facts, first, that copper ores are relatively easy to smelt, and, second, that the necessary fuel for the process was furnished by the forests which formerly covered the island, and which were largely destroyed by the early smiths.

For our purpose it is quite unnecessary to discuss the difficult and debated question as to where the use of copper and bronze originated. It is sufficient to note that the island of Cyprus, placed near early centres of civilisation seems to have been the region from which a knowledge of the pure metal and of its more useful alloy radiated over the Mediterranean and ultimately over Europe generally. It is more than probable that the use of copper or of bronze spread faster than the knowledge of the method of producing either. It is at least clear that in many cases the Stone and Bronze Ages co-existed, suggesting that the new type of implements was at first very difficult to obtain. No doubt for long ages they occupied the position which firearms long occupied among savage races, and which they still occupy among those most remote from civilisation.

In Cyprus itself very few stone implements occur, suggesting that the Stone Age was very short, and rapidly gave place to a metal one.

We do not know how the discovery was made that the addition of tin improved copper for human purposes. Bronzes of very varying composition have been found, including many which contain antimony, a somewhat rare metal, still employed in making many useful alloys. It is suggested that the first smiths tried a great number of combinations before they found one which was satisfactory, and finally fixed upon tin as the most suitable addition.

The next point of interest is the source of the tin. This is a question of great interest, for long after iron had been used, and used extensively in the manufacture of implements, the demand for bronze continued, for the iron, even of late Roman days, was very costly and probably very troublesome to make. Bronze also became of importance in connection with the coinage of civilised nations.

Tin is not a very abundant metal, and it is rare in the Mediterranean.

The deposits which were utilised by the first makers of bronze have doubtless completely disappeared, for from the early days of civilisation the tin deposits even of Far Britain were sought.

Within the Mediterranean region at the present time only one tin deposit of any importance is known. This occurs in the village of Montecatini, which is situated near Volterra in Italy, in the ancient Etruria. It perhaps played a part in connection with the development of the civilisation of ancient Etruria.

Outside of the Mediterranean the main deposits of tin in Europe occur, or occurred, in three separate areas, which formed as it were three stages in one journey, and whose position certainly made them a factor in promoting the spread of Mediterranean culture to the north-west.

These three rich tin-bearing areas were: (1) Galicia in north-western Spain, (2) the south of Brittany, especially between the estuaries of the Loire and the Vilaine, a deposit long since exhausted, and (3) the still-important deposits of southern England, in Cornwall and parts of Devon, which are believed to have been visited by the Phoenicians. Just as the gold of California brought population and civilisation to the Far West of North America long before the natural increase of eastern peoples would have led to a westward movement, so the rich tin deposits of south-western Britain, with the other metals of those favoured islands, brought merchants and navigators to what was the Far West of ancient Europe.