THE RACES OF EUROPE

population, compounded of Megalithic, Borreby, and Corded elements, could not have disappeared completely. After the various elements in the Danish population have had time to blend, we shall see them reappear.

The Swedish population of the Iron Age, best represented by a smaller group of 14 males⁷² (see Appendix I, col. 40), was essentially the same as that in Denmark. There are, however, a few differences—the vault is higher, the face wider, the upper face shorter. Perhaps these more peripheral Scandinavians showed a little of the older blood.

During the Iron Age, Norway was, for the first time, definitely settled by people comparable in civilization to those in Denmark and southern Sweden; it is likely that many of the earlier inhabitants of Jutland and the Danish archipelago had fled to the southwestern corner of that country, while other migrations came across from southern and central Sweden.

The most extensive Iron Age series from Norway is that of Schreiner, which contains 27 male crania.⁷³ (See Appendix I, col. 41.) These are quite different from those of either Denmark or Sweden. They are larger and much more rugged, with heavy browridges and strong muscular markings. Metrically, they approach the Upper Palaeolithic series of Morant; and they could fit easily into the range of the central European Aurignacian group. The Mesolithic crania of St&ngenas and MacArthur’s Cave would not be out of place here. Yet in most dimensions, they fall a little short of the Upper Palaeolithic mean.

They are purely dolichocephalic, with a cranial index of 71.7. On the whole, they are just what one would expect from a Danish Iron Age— Upper Palaeolithic cross, with the latter in the majority, and this explana­tion agrees well with the archaeological data. The stature, 169.5 cm., fits both types. There is another possibility, however, that they had a strong Corded element. That some Corded blend entered into this mixture was indeed likely, but it is impossible to substitute the Corded for the Palaeo­lithic element, since the high vault of the former is not in sufficient evi­dence, and the faces of the Norwegians are wider than either Corded or Nordic.

The central coastal Norwegians of the Iron Age must have been in part true descendants of the Upper Palaeolithic people of central Europe, who moved northward and westward with the retreat of the last ice, and re­mained relatively undisturbed in the centers of its last melting until the arrival of new immigrants in the Iron Age. There must, however, have been regional differences of type in Norway at this time which persisted until the modern period; late Viking Age series from Jaeren, Tjzfnsborg,

78. Retzius, g., Crania Suecica, reworked.

« Schreiner, K. E., SNVO, II, #11, 1927, pp. 1-32.

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and Skien ⁷⁴ in the south show the presence of a brachycephalic type, massive in build and of great cranial size, which is metrically related to the Borreby group of Denmark and northern Germany. These may represent colonists or refugees from Denmark.

A late group from Sogn,⁷⁶ in the north, includes mesocephalic crania with extremely low vaults and smaller dimensions, associated with black or brown hair preserved in the graves. Metrically, they suggest modern Lapp crania in most respects, and serve to mark the northern Norse borderland, beyond which Norwegian settlements were, in the Viking period, only sporadic. These various series place Norway for the first time in history in the full light of physical anthropology, and show that the land of the Vikings was the last periphery of the Nordic world, in which ancient but fully evolved forms of humanity blended with the newcomers from the south and east.

Linguistically, the Germanic peoples who invaded other parts of Europe from Scandinavia and North Germany have been divided into two groups: East Germans and West Germans. The speakers of East Germanic in­cluded the Goths, Vandals, Gepidae, and Burgundians. The Goths claimed to have crossed the Baltic from Sweden (not from the island of Got­land) to the mouth of the Vistula. The Vandals and the Gepidae presum­ably had the same origin. From the Vistula, the East Germans expanded southward and eastward into the Scythian country, where the Gepidae seized control of Hungary, and the Goths finally established an important kingdom on the north shore of the Black Sea.

From here, the history of these tribes is well known. They all had im­portant relationships with the Roman Empire, and adopted Christianity. The movements of the Goths into Greece, Italy, and France do not merit detailed description. The Visigoths pushed westward, occupied southern France shortly after 400 a.d., and moved down into Spain where they were gradually absorbed into the population of the northern provinces. The eastern Goths who fell under the rule of the Huns met a similar fate. Of a once numerous and mobile Gothic nation no trace remains. The same is true of the Gepidae, and of the Vandals, who went from eastern Europe to France, Spain, and North Africa, whence they were subse­quently deported to Byzantium. No doubt, Gothic and Vandal blood flows in the veins of some modern Spaniards as well as of the peoples in other countries through which they passed. But this eastern branch of the Germans failed to make any lasting impression upon the racial map of Europe.

Although there is not much data concerning the physical type of these eastern Germans, there is enough to enable us to come to some definite

w Larsen, C. F., SNVO, #5, 1901, pp. 3-53. w Ibid.