201

skulls of so-called “Cimmerians” likewise show no important deviation,⁶⁶

Furthermore, an important series of Early Iron Age crania from the Sevan district of Armenia, probably dated from the earlier half of the first millennium B.C., and probably therefore earlier than the Scyths in Europe, or at least as early as their first appearance, is exactly like the more dolichocephalic element in the Scythian group, and manifestly Nordic. The vault, like that of the Scyths, is low, the nose leptorrhine, the face leptene, with more compressed zygomata.⁶⁷ (See Appendix I, col. 38.) Morphologically, these Armenian skulls are characterized by a medium forehead slope, moderate browridges and muscular develop­ment; a moderately deep nasion depression, and straight or lightly convex nasal profile; a projection of the occiput which is most marked in the lower segment, and accompanied by some lambdoid flattening; a typical compression in the malar region. This series serves a double purpose: to show that a Nordic type entered into the modern Armenian blend, and to define the Iranian variety of Nordic which may have been likewise in­volved in the settlement of Persia and of India.⁶⁸ Furthermore, it is very similar, both metrically and morphologically, to the early Germanic cranial group, and this virtual identity draws together the two geograph­ical extremes of an originally united family.

We have seen that the Scythians and Sarmatians, although they un­doubtedly included in their ranks many individuals of different political affiliations, formed nevertheless a quite constant principal racial type, which was essentially Iranian and a form of Nordic. In its characteristic low vault, as in other dimensions, it specifically resembled the earlier eastern European and central Asiatic Nordic form. It was essentially a member of the racial cluster associated with the spread of Satem Indo- European speech in both eastern Europe and Asia.

6. The germanic peoples

We have already dealt with the expansions of two great Indo-European peoples, the Kelts and the Scythians, who, during the second half of the first millennium before Christ, nearly divided the European continent, north of the Alpine mountain barrier, between them. Other groups, such as the Thracians, who occupied large expanses of territory in the Balkans, have been neglected because of lack of information.

The first millennium of the Christian era witnessed two more such spread­ings of Indo-Europeans; those of the Germans and of the Slavs, the former

66. Stoiyhwo, k., Swiatowit, vol. 6, 1905, pp. 73-80.

67. Bunak, V. V., raj, vol. 17, 1929, pp. 64-87.

68. Unpublished series of living peoples from the mountainous regions of the northern Punjab, and the Northwest Frontier Province, which will be published by Dr. Gordon T. Bowles, conform closely to the metrical and morphological specifications of this type.