Page:Early Man in Britain and His Place in the Tertiary Period.djvu/351

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CHAP. IX.]
THE IBERIC ELEMENT IN SPAIN.
323

its more ancient sense. They have also left marks of their presence in the name of the Loire (Ligur), and possibly in Britain in the obscure term Lloegrians (Lloegr). From the intimate manner in which they are associated with the Iberians by classical writers, coupled with their agreement in small stature and swarthy complexion, it may be inferred with tolerable certainty that they were related to each other, as the Frank to the Goth, or the Dane to the Norman, and that they belong to the same non-Aryan branch of the human race. It is also by no means improbable that the small swarthy Etruskans, whose empire extended in the earliest times recorded by history north of the Alps into Tyrol, and who held dominion also over Lombardy, belong to the same non-Aryan stock, since they were conterminous, and were driven away from their ancient possessions by the same invading peoples. Just as the Celt poured down through central France, isolating the Ligurian and the Iberian, so he poured through the passes of the Alps into Lombardy, sundering the Etruskans of Rhætia and Noricum from those of Etruria proper. In my belief the Iberians of France and Spain, the Silures of Wales, the Ligures of southern Gaul and northern Italy, and the small dark Etruskans, are to be looked upon as ethnological islands isolated by successive invasions, pointing out that if we could go deep enough in past time we should find that the whole of Europe was inhabited solely by a swarthy non-Aryan population.

The Iberic Element in the present Population of Spain.

The physical characters of the races defined in the preceding pages are still possessed by the present inhabit-