EARLIEST POPULATION. Of the peoples that have inhabited Europe since the dawn of his tory, some — and these the most important, Greeks, Italians, Celts, Germans, and Slays—ex hibit striking resemblances in language and in their early religion and customs. Other peoples, like the Iberians, who inhabited what, is now Spain, the Etruscans, who inhabited northern haly, and the Lapps and Finns. who still occupy the extreme north of the continent, apparently had from the outset dissimilar speech and cus toms. The resemblances noted between the peo ples of the first group exist also between them and the Indo-Iranian peoples of Asia. From these data philologists have inferred that all these peoples are members of a single race, which they term the Aryan race; and since, in historical times, the Celts, Germans, and Slays have been pressing westward, it is assumed that the original home of the Aryan race was in Asia. Modern ethnological researches, however, are tending to modify the -ryas hypothesis. On the basis of a comparison of physical characteristics, es pecially of skull-forms, it is asserted that the original population of Europe consisted of two races, which are termed Eurafriean and Eurasian, and that the former race was originally located in the basin of the Mediterranean, the latter in the valley of the Danube or even farther east.
Of the Eurafrican race two branches are found. one of which continued to live on the Mediter ranean, while the other went or was driven into northern Europe (the so-called Baltic branch). It is further asserted that the so-called Aryan peoples of Europe exhibit. for the most part. such a mixture of these two racial types that the resemblances which have heretofore been taken as proofs of common origin seem rather ascribable to the diffusion of the speech. religion, and cus toms of some superior people, partly by expan sion and conquest, partly by imitation. See Awe AN; INDO-EUROPEANS ; EUROPE, PEOPLES OF.