TEUTONIC PEOPLES, a comprehensive term for those populations of Europe which speak one or other of the various Teutonic languages, viz., the English-speaking inhabitants of the British Isles, the German-speaking inhabitants of Germany, Austria-Hungary and Switzerland, the Flemish-speaking inhabit ants of Belgium, the Scandinavian-speaking inhabitants of Swe den and Norway, practically all the inhabitants of Holland and Denmark, small German and Flemish-speaking communities in Italy and France, the somewhat larger German and Swedish popu lations in Russia, and the populations in America, Africa, Aus tralasia, etc., which have emigrated from the same countries. In the British Isles, there is (in addition to the Celtic-speaking elements) a considerable population which claims Ce'tic nation ality though it uses English.
The term "Teutonic," like the other terms ("Germanic," "Gothic," etc.) which are or have been used in the same sense, is of scholastic and not of popular origin, because their common origin has been forgotten. In Tacitus's time, however, a conscious ness of their relationship to one another was fully retained. He cites native poems which declared that the Inguaeones, Hermiones and Istaeuones—the three main branches of the Germani (see below)—were sprung from three sons of a certain Mannus (perhaps "Man") , himself the son of the god Tuisto, the son of Earth ; and a Frankish document at least four centuries later mentions three brothers named Erminus, Inguo and Istio, from whom many nations were descended. In English documents also eponymous national ancestors are grouped in genealogical trees.
In regard to physical features they present at the present time many varieties both of stature and of pigmentation, though on the whole they are probably the tallest and fairest of European peoples. These characteristics must in early days have been as pronounced. Moreover, the tallness and dolichocephaly which now specially mark the more northern peoples of the group appear very prominently in cemeteries of the migration period in Switzerland and other neighbouring countries. On the whole, however, the skeletons found in German and Scandinavian tombs dating even from the earliest period do not show any very re markable differences from those of the present day. But the most striking characteristics of these peoples occur also to a con siderable extent among their eastern and western neighbours, where they can hardly be ascribed altogether to Teutonic admix ture.
The neolithic population of Scandinavia was composed of three elements : Food-gatherers (descendants of the epipalaeo lithic inhabitants), Megalithic Builders and the People of the Separate Graves. Study of these cultures and their distribution shows that the folk of the Separate Graves were a distinct and bellicose people. Whether their original home lay in Jutland or whether they were continental invaders is disputed ; but by the be ginning of the bronze age, the Separate Graves' People had suc ceeded both in dominating and absorbing the other two elements. (See also ARCHAEOLOGY : NEOLITHIC and SCANDINAVIAN CIVILIZA TION.) As no Teutonic inscriptions are extant from before the 3rd or 4th centuries, it cannot be stated with certainty what types of objects are characteristic of Teutonic civilization in the bronze and earliest iron ages. Yet during the bronze age, a fairly well defined group of antiquities can be traced covering the basin of the Elbe, Mecklenburg, Holstein, Jutland, southern Sweden and the islands of the Belt, and archaeologists conjecture that these antiquities represent the early civilization of the Teutonic peoples. The civilization was, of course, not wholly of native growth. Strong foreign influence, first from the East Mediterra nean and later from Italy, can be distinguished, nor is the influ ence of Central Europe (the Aunjetitz and the Danubian-Sudetic Tumulus cultures) to be underestimated. But the types intro duced from the south have generally undergone considerable modi fication. The degree of wealth and artistic skill of which many of even the earliest antiquities give evidence is probably due to the importance of the amber trade. Both in eastern and in western Germany the objects found are of somewhat different types pointing to a lower standard of civilization. What peoples inhabited these regions can only be conjectured, but there is a certain amount of evidence from place-names—not altogether satisfactory—that the Celtic peoples at one time extended east wards throughout the basin of the Weser. With the beginning of the iron age (perhaps c. 500-400 B.c.) Celtic influence becomes apparent everywhere. By this time, however, the great Celtic movement towards the south-east had probably begun, so that the Teutonic peoples were now cut off from direct communication with the centres of southern civilization.