207

The prototype of the western German peoples who migrated from the region about the mouth of the Elbe is well represented by a series of skulls from Hannover which includes 41 male crania.⁷⁸ (See Appendix I, col. 42.) Metrically, these differ from the Danish Iron Age skulls in being slightly longer, somewhat broader, and considerably higher. The fore­heads are broader, and the face is wider, and in many cases a bit longer. These skulls deviate from the normal Nordic type of central European origin with which we are familiar in their greater size and robusticity, and particularly in their greater vault height.

The skulls of the Anglo-Saxons who invaded England in the fourth and fifth centuries of the present era ⁷⁹ (see Appendix I, col. 43) are almost identical with this Hannover group. It is to this same specific category that the Spanish Visigothic skulls to which we have already referred belong. To it must be added two series of old Frisians from northern Holland,⁸⁰ which are identical in every respect. The skulls of these old Saxons, old Hanoverians, and old Frisians differ in a number of ways from those of other Nordics which we have studied. They are larger than the Aunjetitz group and the Danes, and in fact any other series of Indo-European speak­ers that we have met, except the Norwegians. They lack the low vault and sloping forehead common to the earlier Nordics of Denmark, the Gauls, and the Scyths. The vault is moderately high; while the cranial index is on the border of dolicho- and mesocephaly. Compared with the other Nordics, the forehead is relatively straight, the browridges are greater, the muscular markings more pronounced, the cranial base wider, the face longer and somewhat wider.

The type represented by these three groups and by the Visigoths seems to be a variant of the Nordic type to which the early Indo-European speakers belonged. Its difference is one of size, and it appears to have at­tained this distinction through a mixture, in southern Scandinavia and Germany, between the older local population, consisting of a combina­tion of Megalithic, Corded, and Borreby elements, and the purely Nordic Danish Iron Age group. The resultant type approaches in some respects, but does not even approximate in size, the coastal Norwegian population which we have already studied, and it deviates far less from the central European Nordic than does the Norwegian group.

This physical type is accompanied by tall stature, of about 170 cm., and by a considerable heaviness and robusticity of the long bones. The bodily build was clearly heavier and thicker set than that of the previously studied Nordics. That it was characteristically blond is attested by the

78 Hauschild, m. W., zfma, vol. 25, 1925, pp. 221-242.

79 Morant, g. M., Biometrika, vol. 18, 1926, pp. 56-98.

8° Reche, o., vur, vol. 4, 1929, pp. 129-158, 193-215.

THE RACES OF EUROPE

pigmentation of living examples as well as by numerous early descrip­tions. This type, being a mixed variety of central European Nordic com­bined with old northwestern European elements, is not a true Nordic in the sense in which the word has been used in this work, and its common and exclusive designation as Nordic in popular parlance as in scientific works is responsible for much of the confusion prevalent in the identifica­tion of that racial type today. Since it is found among both West and East Germans of the period of dispersal, it is essentially the Germanic or Teutonic racial type. The eccentric linguistic position of the Germanic peoples in the total Indo-European family has its racial connotations.

One of the principal outlets for this movement from the northwestern coasts of Germany was the Anglo-Saxon invasion of the British Isles.⁸¹ This had begun by 250 a.d., when the Saxons raided the southern and eastern coast of England. It was a period of general turmoil, for Irish pirates were plundering the coast of Wales at the same time. The Romans were hard put to defend themselves against this double peril, and despite their military and naval precautions, the raids grew in volume and fre­quency.

In 406-407 a.d., large invasions of Germanic peoples crossed the Rhine and pillaged the Roman settlements in most of Gaul. This broke off com­munications between Rome and Britain. With Gaul out of Roman con­trol, there could be no hope of holding Britain. Hence, in 409 a.d., the Emperor Honorius issued a decree bidding the inhabitants of Britain to shift for themselves in the future. From this point on the Saxons received little opposition, and settled in great numbers. Since the Saxons were not townsmen, they did not occupy the cities which they plundered, and the urban population established by the Romans in England maintained its identity for a century or longer before the towns were abandoned or became Anglicized.

The earliest Saxon contacts were Viking raids in which they not only pillaged the coastal settlements but also rowed far up the rivers, estab­lishing temporary camps in the upper waters. When the main body of Saxons under Gerdic marched from the region of the Wash across Lincoln­shire to the upper Thames Valley, the invaders found that other Saxons of more temporary habits had preceded them. Hence it is necessary, in studying early Saxon remains, to distinguish between mixed communities in which raiders had taken native women to wife, and pure Saxon settle­ments in which whole families and villages had emigrated at the beginning of the period of serious settlement.

The Saxons occupied, for the most part, empty country. This was be­cause they were accustomed to low-lying land with a deep, rich soil, and

80. Kendrick, t. D., and Hawkes, c. F. C., Archaeology in England and Wales, 1914-1931.