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formation of an opinion on this matter. This “Nordic” type is no special or separate race, but merely a variant of the larger Mediterranean family, of an intermediate metrical position.

It finds a ready prototype in the Bronze Age population which stretched from Austria to Siberia, and which was in turn the product of mixture between Danubian peasants and Corded invaders. It seems most likely that the Illyrians were largely the descendants, more specifically, of the Aunjetitz people, through an Urnfields medium, or of some similar physical blend composed of identical racial ingredients.

3. The kelts

One of the most controversial subjects in the whole of European history is the physical composition of the Keltic peoples. The name Keltic has been applied to many racial types, real and imagined, from short, brunet, round heads to blond brachycephals and Nordics. Many modern prehis* torians take the stand that the Kelts were everywhere a small minority of aristocrats and conquerors, and that no special racial type accompanied their expansion in Europe. This position, however, becomes invalid when we examine the actual skeletons of Keltic speakers. There was a Keltic physical type, which the Kelts carried to their primary areas of coloniza­tion, and which will be described shortly.

Although earlier identifications, however likely, are still questionable, we may state that the Kelts as such first appeared in the European historical setting about the year 500 B.C., with the beginning of the La T&ne civiliza­tion. The home of the Kelts, or at least the country in which they devel­oped this brilliant Iron Age culture, lies without reasonable doubt in south­western Germany, in the upper drainage of the Rhine,²⁶ a country which had formed the western section of the original Hallstatt area. The eastern­most outposts of the early Keltic domain were Bohemia and Galicia, while, on the west and south, it touched the territory of the Ligurians and of the Rhaetians. The Kelts, therefore, were situated northwest and west of the Illyrians proper, and south of the Germans, who at the time were confined to Scandinavia and northwesternmost Germany.

The Keltic languages are very closely related to the Italic group, of which Latin was a derivative. The period in which the Keltic languages became differentiated from other forms of Indo-European speech must, therefore, be as old as the departure of the ancestors of the Italici for Italy, and therefore must lead back to the Bronze Age.²⁷ Keltic, like Italic, is divided into two branches—P-Keltic and Q-Keltic. It is considered likely

26. Hubert, H., The Rise of the Celts, p. 147.

27. Although one school of Italic scholars derives the P-Italici from north of the Alps n Iron Age times, all admit the Bronze Age dating of the Q-Italic arrival. For the de­tails of this controversy, see Whatmough, J., The Foundations of Roman Italy.

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that the phonetic separation which split both of the linguistic groups took place independently in each, and that the tendency for such a division was inherent in both Keltic and Italic at the time of their separation from one another. We do not know at what time the Goidelic or Q-Keltic dialect split off from the Brythonic or P dialect, but this cleavage again must have occurred at a reasonably early period, since the division was complete at the time of our earliest knowledge of these languages. Q-Keltic has sur­vived only in Ireland, Scotland, and on the Isle of Man. All other known dialects, living and extinct, from Asia Minor to Wales, have been of the P variety.

The Keltic expansion, which began about 500 B.C., was a rapid and extensive one. The Kelts were an extremely mobile people who conquered and wandered far, and at the time of their expansion were apparently numerous as well. Their well-known migrations carried them over the Alps into Italy, down into southeastern Europe where they invaded Greece, and even over into Asia Minor where they established the short lived Galatian colony. Their main expansion, however, lay to the west. Belgium and northern France became great Keltic centers, from which some of them migrated down into northern Spain. This westward move­ment carried them also into the British Isles, where the Q-Keltic people settled Ireland, and their P-Keltic brethren established themselves in England and Wales. Large sections of Scotland were to remain free for the most part from these Keltic invaders until after the time of Christ, when the Goidels crossed over from Ireland.

The question as to the linguistic identity of the previous inhabitants, the Piets, is an open one. At present, the tendency is to consider them, and the pre-Goidelic Cruithni of Ireland, as speakers of some early form of Keltic. The further question as to whether or not the Goidels crossed Eng­land in their journey to Ireland is likewise open, but the prevailing tend­ency is to bring them over the old sea road from northern Spain, which they had previously entered by way of France, and to deny that they so­journed in England at all.

In their period of development in southwestern Germany, the relation­ship between the Kelts and Illyrians must have been intimate, for the Kelts received iron from a Hallstatt source, and were actually, during the Early Iron Age, participants in a Hallstatt form of culture. The major factor which served to differentiate La T&ne from Hallstatt culture was the incorporation, by the former, of many elements derived from the clas­sical Mediterranean world. The Kelts were situated at a favorable spot for the reception of such influences; Greek influences moved up the Rhdne and Sadne from Marseilles, while those from Rome crossed the Alpine passes into Bavaria and Switzerland and thence into the Keltic homeland,

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In addition to the Hallstatt Iron Age base and classical accretions, we must further acknowledge the influences of some eastern European grass­land culture, for the Kelts rode astride as well as in chariots, and the P-Kelts introduced trousers to western Europe. This garment was central Asiatic in origin, and was typical of the Scyths, whose period of cultural efflorescence in the east was contemporary with and parallel to that of the Kelts in the west. Philologically, there are a number of close linguistic connections between the Kelts and the Indo-Iranians, which may reflect this or an earlier cultural contact. It is most likely, however, that the principal contact between the Keltic-speaking peoples and the Iranian horsemen of the eastern European plain took place during the early years of the great Keltic expansion.

Turning back from Keltic expansions to Keltic origins, we find no cultural disturbances in southwestern Germany which would permit the arrival of the Kelts from elsewhere between the Hallstatt epoch and the early La T&ne. Before the Hallstatt, however, the spread of the Late Bronze Age Lausitz culture into this region from eastern Germany may conceiv­ably have brought a large number of people, impossible to identify because of their practice of cremation. These people may well have been the bearers of Keltic speech. Since the related Italici were themselves Urn­fields cremators before they succumbed to indigenous burial rites in Italy, this identification is rendered more than likely. Hubert has, indeed, postu­lated an earlier Ligurian-speaking population in the Keltic cradle-area.²⁸

The derivation of the Kelts from a Hallstatt cultural horizon, in part of the earliest region of Hallstatt development, while the main current of Hallstatt cultural expansion was borne by Illyrian speakers, seems incon­gruous. One must remember, however, that the Nordic skeletal type with which the Illyrians were identified in Lower Austria was confined, in its purely dolichocephalic form, to the lowland country north of the Bavarian foothills, while the Keltic area of development was, in its strictest limits, within the highland zone. Here the Kelts developed their own culture independently of the Illyrians and retained their own language.

Keltic cranial material from the southwest German center of Keltic development is surprisingly scarce. Schliz has described six skulls, and notices of three others have appeared in more recent publications.²⁹ Of these nine, one is dolichocephalic, four are mesocephalic, and four are brachycephalic. Although this small group is far from sufficient to dis­close the racial type of the Kelts in their homeland, it is enough to show us that a round-headed element played a considerable part in the develop-

26. Hubert, H., The Rise of the Kelts, p. 159.

27. Jacob, G., AFA, vol. 20, 1891-92, p. 181.

Ortmann, R., JVST, vol. 15, 1927, pp. 56-59.

Schliz, A., AFA, vol. 37, 1910, pp. 246-251.

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ment of this ethnic group. The brachycephals involved are large headed and powerfully built, with long faces, and rather high orbits; the foreheads are sloping and only slightly bowed at the junction of the facial and cranial planes. The inference is that these brachycephals were derived from the older combination of Bell Beaker and Borreby types which was formed in the upper Rhine country at the beginning of the age of metal, and which persisted into the Hallstatt period. These seem to have mixed with the expected intrusive Nordics. We must really wait until we examine larger series of Keltic crania from elsewhere, however, before passing judgment on the final result of this blend.

A better picture of the La T&ne type may be obtained from the study of its early eastern extension. Hellich’s series from Bohemia ³⁰ (see Appendix I, col. 33) is the only single group of central European La T&ne crania of any consequence. This includes 27 male crania, most of which are dolicho­cephalic, but which contain a significant minority of brachycephals. In general, the La Tene skulls are not in any important metrical way distin­guishable from those of the preceding periods of which we have clear knowledge—that is, Aunjetitz and Hallstatt. They represent merely a sub- variety of the same general combination of types, with a brachycephalic accretion which makes the total series mesocephalic.³¹ But there are other features, however, which render them as a group slightly different; the vault has a tendency to be low in proportion to its breadth, and the upper face is long in proportion to the total face, for the Keltic jaw, although broad at the gonial angles, is not as deep as that of other Iron Age Nordics. A composite series of eleven male crania from the type site of La T&ne on Lake Neufchatel in Switzerland, and nearby burial places,³² is almost exactly the same as the Bohemian series; the vaults of the Swiss La Tene people, who may in part be identified with the Helvetii, are even lower than those of the Bohemians. As one might expect, the Swiss series con­tains a number of high brachycephals, with cranial indices as high as 90;³³ but on the whole, most of the few Kelts whose remains have been studied in Switzerland were no different from those in Bohemia.

Less than a dozen skulls serve to identify the Keltic racial elements in Austria and in the Dinaric Alpine mountain zone.³⁴ On the whole, this

80. Hellich, B., Praehistoricke lebky v iechdch z* Sbtrky Musea Kr&lovstvi Ceskeho.

31. Schliz’s series of 14 crania from Bohemia, 3 from Moravia, and 2 from Silesia do not differ from those measured by Hellich. Schliz, A., AFA, vol. 37, 1901, pp. 246-251.

32. Virchow, R., ZFE, vol. 16, 1884, pp. 168-181; ibid., vol. 18, 1886, pp. 561-566.

Lagotala, H., BMSA, ser 7, vol. 3, 1923, pp. 4-9.

• Schlaginhaufen, O., AFSA, N. F. Bd. 38, 1936, pp. 226-236.

• Poch, H., MAGW, vol. 56, 1926, pp. 255-270.

Lebzelter, V., WPZ, vol. 22, 1935, pp. 104-105.

Luschan, F. von, MAGW, vol. 8, 1879, pp. 85-89.

Schliz, A., loc. cit.

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evidence is not satisfactory, but it serves to indicate that the regular mesocephalic type and one or more types of brachycephals were present. The most southeasterly Keltic skull known is one from Kupinovo, near Belgrade in Serbia, which belonged to a Dinaric brachycephal similar to those found at Glasinac, and this again witnesses the persistence of this Dinaric element during the Iron Age in or near the modern Dinaric area.

Before turning to the abundant remains of the Kelts in France and the British Isles, it may be well to review what evidence we have for their racial type in central Europe. Here the Kelts seem to have been a com­posite people, a blend of the different brachycephalic elements left over from the Bronze Age in the mountainous zone of southern Germany, and invaders of Nordic type from the plains to the north and east. One sup­poses that the Keltic linguistic element came with the later group.

Sculpture from Greece and Rome gives us a picture of the living Kelts who reached the lands of classical civilization by eastward and southward move­ments. The well-known Dying Gaul and similar statues show a strongly muscled type with mesocephalic or brachycephalic head form, a rather short face with a square jaw, a straight and rather prominent mesorrhine nose, with horizontal or elevated tip and full nostrils, heavy browridges, a broad forehead, and stiff, bristly hair. This type, while familiar enough in western Europe, is not one which accords with the majority of the Keltic skeletons. The typical Keltic face was long in the upper portion, shallow in the mandible, long and narrow of nose, often with a convex profile, and the forehead was extremely sloping and the vault low. This has its most frequent counterpart today in the British Isles. While the type selected by the classical sculptors to represent the Kelts must have had its living models, these may have been drawn from the brachycephalic minority.

Most of the La T&ne material from France comes from the north, from the Marne region, where the Keltic settlement seems to have been par­ticularly strong. Fortunately, large and competent series of the Gauls of this district, before and after the Roman conquest, furnish adequate in­formation.³⁶ (See Appendix I, col. 34.) Both groups are alike, showing that submission to Roman rule did nothing to change the physical type of this particular people.

The Gauls as so represented were mesocephalic, mesoprosopic, and on the upper borders of leptorrhiny. The vault, as with all characteristic La T&ne Keltic groups, is not distinguished for its height, and in the large

⁸⁵ Raymond, P., RP, vol. 2, 1907, pp. 10-22, includes 20 males.

Wallis, Mrs. Ruth Sawtell, unpublished measurements in Mus6e Broca, J&cole d’Anthropologie, and Mus6e d’Histoire Naturelle. Includes 28 pre-Romans and 83 Gallo-Romans, all males.