Thus in this direction a connection between the most ancient remains and the present form of the European population is by no means im possible. The great antiquity of the remains is no obstacle, for if we consider language and roughly calculate the date of the Indo-Germanic pre-historic period, we also reach very early times. It requires an infi nitely long time to create such forms of language as the Indo-German and to give them so tenacious and enduring a solidity as they every where possess.
All this, of course, cannot be strictly proved. lint still less foundation is there for the theory which supposes an aboriginal people in Europe that later on disappeared entirely, and which attempts to explain by an intermixture with it the physical peculiarities of the present race. There is hardly any doubt that the pile-buildings of Europe appertain to ancient Indo-Germans: it is difficult to decide to which tribes they belonged, but the geographical situation might decide; those of Southern Germany and Switzerland might be attributed, for instance, to the Celts, and those of North Germany to Germanic nations. (See LANA:, DWI :LUNGS and illus. Vol. II.) Leaving those misty ancient periods and stepping on clear historical ground, we classify the European ludo-Germans as follows: i. The Greek Family, to which belong the old Greeks, the modern Greeks—notwithstanding their intermixtures with Slays and Turks— the 111vrians, the modern Albanians, the Throefans, and, in Asia, the Phrygians.
The Phrygians, who have left visible traces behind them in Macedonia, migrated hack into Asia, and we must presume the same of the Ionic Greeks. The Albanians, who also settled as colonists in Greece and Italy and scattered all over the Orient as soldiers, are the old Illyrians, and they have retained their aboriginal seats in the western part of the Balkan peninsula. They are divided into two linguistically distinct, chief families, the Toskides and the Ghegicles, the former in the south of the country, the latter in Central and North Albania. Their name, Albanians, is derived from a small region of their country extending from near Corfu to the 'Voyutza River. Its name is Arbar, and the inhabitants are called Arbanites, whence has been derived the name Albanians, as well as the Turkish denomination of Arnauts. The Albanian language is more closely related to the Greek than to the other Indo-Germanic languages.
2. The Pali. All the different tribes of ancient Italy were later on absorbed into the Latins (Romans). They had probably migrated over land by way of the South-eastern Alps, but some of the most eastern tribes may have come directly from Greece by water. The Romans and Greeks are related in the same degree as the Indians and the Iranians.
The skulls of the Greeks and the Romans belong to the mesocephalic form, but they approach the dolichocephalic more than the brachycephalic (fil. 2, fig. 9), and they are not very high. Two types may be distin guished among the ancient Greeks—the one rather dolichocephalic, oblong-wedge-shaped, with broad occiput, narrow, straight forehead, and larger facial angle; and the other more brachycephalic, with rounded shill-structure, low and somewhat retreating forehead, strongly-projecting frontal bone, and smaller facial angle.
The modern Greek skull is, according to Retzius, high in proportion to its length and breadth, of a wedge-like, rounded form, but broader at the forehead than at the occiput. The hair and eyes of all South Europeans are dark, the skin as a rule brownish, but in many cases often of a yellowish-white. Blond heroes are frequently mentioned by the ancient Greeks, so that in olden times a lighter type also must have existed. (See GREEKS, also RomAxs, and illus. Vol. II.) 3. The ancient Celts were found in the western part of Europe, in Gaul and Northern Spain (where by intermingling with the Iberians they were changed into the Celtiberians), in Britain, in Switzerland, through out Southern Germany to the north of the Main, and in Northern Italy. At present the Celts are confined to Brittany, Wales, Ireland, Western Scotland, and the islands between Ireland and England. The buildings depicted on Plate tit (fig. 4) belong to them. They retained in the Scotch mountains, almost to the beginning of modern times, their old barbarous character as it was described by Csar.
Their languages form two great divisions—the Cimbric and the Gaelic branches, the latter comprising the northern, the former the southern, languages. The Old Gaelic, the language of Vercingetorix, is extinct, with the exception of a few relics. The oldest form of the Celtic lan guages that we possess originated in the early Middle Ages. Celtic influences have not been unimportant on the character of medieval legends.