The Expansion of the Teutonic Nordics and Slavic Alpines, 100 B. C. to 1100 A. D.
This map (Pl. III) shows the yellow area greatly diminished in central and northern Europe, while it retains its supremacy in Spain and Italy as well as on the north coast of Africa. In the latter areas the green dots have nearly vanished and have been replaced by pink and red dots. In central Europe the green area is still more broken up and reduced to a minimum. In the Balkans and eastern Europe, however, two large centres of green, north and south of the Danube respectively, represent the expanding power of the Slavic-speaking Alpines. The pink area of the continental Nordics is everywhere fading and is on the point of vanishing as a distinctive type and of merging in the red. The expansion of the Teutonic Nordics from Scandinavia and from the north of Germany is now at its maximum and they are everywhere pressing through the Empire of Rome and laying the foundations of the modern nations of Europe. The Vandals have migrated from the coasts of the Baltic to what is now Hungary, then westward into France and finally, after occupying for a while southern Spain, under pressure of the kindred Visigoths to northern Africa, where they established a kingdom which is the sole example we have of a Teutonic state on that continent. The Visigoths and Suevi laid the foundations of Spain and Portugal, while the Franks, Burgundians and Normans transformed Gaul into France.
Into Italy for a thousand years floods of Nordic Teutons crossed the Alps and settled along the Po Valley. While many tribes participated in these invasions, the most important migration was that of the Lombards, who, coming from the basin of the Baltic by way of the Danubian plains, occupied the Po Valley in force and scattered a Teutonic nobility throughout the peninsula. The Lombard and kindred strains in the north give to that portion of the peninsula its present predominance over the provinces south of the Apennines.
The conquest of the British Isles by the Teutonic and Scandinavian Nordics was far more complete than was their conquest of Spain, Italy or even northern France. When these Teutons arrived upon the scene, the ancient, dark Neolithics had very largely absorbed the early Nordic invaders, Goidels and Cymry alike. Floods of Saxons, of Angles and later of Danes, crossed the Channel and the North Sea and displaced the old population in Scotland and the eastern half of England, while Norse Vikings following in their wake occupied nearly all of the outlying islands and much of the coast. Both these later invasions, Danish and Norse, passed around the greater island and inundated Ireland, so that the big, blond or red-haired Irishman of to-day is to a large extent a Dane in a state of culture analogous to that of Scotland before the Reformation.
This map shows that the vitality of Scandinavia was far from exhausted after sending for upward of two thousand years tribe after tribe across to the continent and that it was now producing an extraordinarily vigorous type, the Vikings in the west and the equally warlike and energetic Varangians in the east, who migrated back to the motherland of the Nordics and laid the foundations of modern Russia.
While all these splendid conquests were in full swing a little known group of tribes was growing and spreading in eastern and southern Germany and in Austria-Hungary and occupying the lands left vacant by the Teutonic nations, which had invaded the Roman Empire. From this centre in the neighborhood of the Carpathians and in Galicia eastward to the head of the Dnieper River, the Wends and Sarmatians expanded in all directions. They were the ancestors of those Alpines who are to-day Slavic-speaking. From this obscure beginning came the bulk of the Russians and the South Slavs. The expansion of the Slavs is one of the most significant features of the Dark Ages and the author has attempted to indicate the centre of expansion of these tribes by green dots and green arrows, radiating in all directions from the solid green area in Europe. To sum up this map, the yellow area has steadily declined everywhere, while in western Europe the green area is now limited to the infertile and backward mountain regions. In eastern Europe, however, this same green Alpine area is showing a marvellous capacity for recovery, as will appear from the map of the races of to-day.
The red area is widely spread and occupies the river valleys and the fertile lands and represents everywhere the ruling, military aristocracy more or less thinly scattered over a conquered peasantry of Mediterranean and Alpine blood. One phenomenon of dire import is shown on the map, where, coming from the districts north and east of the Caspian Sea, certain black arrows are seen shooting westward into Europe, reaching in one extreme instance as far as Châlons in France, where Attila nearly succeeded in destroying what remained of western civilization. These arrows mark respectively Huns, Cumans, Avars, Magyars, Bulgars and other Asiatic hordes, probably for the most part of Mongoloid origin and coming originally from central Asia far beyond the range of Aryan speech. These hordes of Mongoloids destroyed the budding culture of Russia, while at a later date kindred tribes under the name of Turks or Tatars flooded the Balkans and the valley of the Danube but these later invasions entered Europe from Asia Minor.
PRESENT DISTRIBUTION
OF
EUROPEAN RACES
(generalized scheme)
by
Madison Grant