Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 53.djvu/758

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734
THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

height not a whit less than that of the pure Scandinavians in Norway and Sweden is proved. It lessens toward the north in contact with the Lapps, most stunted of men at an average of only five feet for adult males. It decreases on the east among the Karelian Finns, falling rapidly to the Russian average. Bear in mind that in no other part of northern Europe, save in Scandinavia, just across the Baltic Sea, is an average stature anywhere near that of the Finns to be found; that a cross with the Swedes in consequence is inadequate as an explanation for this tallness; that wherever there is contact with the Slav, precisely as in Austria-Hungary, where, as we have seen, an ethnic trait ran up against Slavdom, the bodily height falls to mediocrity; and draw the only inference possible both from geography and physical anthropology. We shall deal with the philologists later. The Finn and the Scandinavian are at bottom of the same race.

Summarizing our results thus far, we find two physical types more or less clearly coexisting in the Russian people, and throughout all the Slavs, too, for that matter. One is tall, blondish, and longheaded; the other is brachycephalic, darker-complexioned, and of medium height. The relative proportions of each vary greatly from one region to another. Among Lithuanians and Poles, the former is more noticeable; in the Ukraine the other type becomes more frequent; the Great Russians stand between the two; while among the southern Slavs the blond, long-headed variety entirely disappears. Not only do the relative proportions of these component types vary from one region to another. Distinct differences in the several social strata of the same locality appear. The tall dolichocephalic blondes are more characteristic of the upper classes as a rule, so far as the matter has been examined.[1] Our results for western Europe are entirely harmonious with this tendency. And, thirdly, it is curious to note that the relative proportions of these two ethnic types have changed entirely since prehistoric times. This point is of so great significance that we must examine it a bit more in detail.

Nowhere else in Europe is the complete submergence of an old race by an intrusive one more 'clear than in the Slavic portion of Europe. Bogdanof, founder of Russian archæology, devoted his entire life to proof of this fact in his own country,[2] The first indications of this submerged aboriginal population were given by crania


  1. Olechnowiez, 1893, 1894, and 1897, has obtained some highly interesting results among the "petite noblesse" in Poland. Talko-Hryncewicz, 189Y, confirms it, in Bull. Acad. Science, Cracow.
  2. The facts yielded by his first investigation in 1867 have been confirmed by every observation since. We are fortunate in that a complete summary of his life work was given by himself at the International Congress of Anthropology at Moscow in 1892. Titles of all his monographs will be found in our bibliography above mentioned.