Russian Origins.
We need not be detained by the controversy carried on between Sergi and Zaborowski regarding a prehistoric spread of the Mediterranean race to Russia[1308]. The skulls from several of the old Kurgans, identified by Sergi with his Mediterranean type, have not been sufficiently determined as to date or cultural periods to decide the question, while their dolicho shape is common both to the Mediterraneans and to the proto-Aryans of the North European type[1309]. To this stock the proto-Slavs are affiliated by Zaborowski and many others[1310], although the present Slavs are all distinctly round-headed. Ripley asks, almost in despair, what is to be done with the present Slav element, and decides to apply "the term Homo Alpinus to this broad-headed group wherever it occurs, whether on mountains or plains, in the west or in the east[1311]."
The Ossets.
We are beset by the same difficulties as we pass with the Ossets of the Caucasus into the Iranian and Indian domains of the proto-Aryan peoples. These Ossets, who are the only aborigines of Aryan speech in Caucasia, are by Zaborowski[1312] identified with the Alans, who are already mentioned in the 1st century A.D. and were Scythians of Iranian speech, blonds, mixed with Medes, and perhaps descendants of the Massagetae. We know from history that the Goths and Alans became closely united, and it may be from the Goths that the Osset descendants of the Alans (some still call themselves Alans) learned to brew beer. Elsewhere[1313] Zaborowski represents the Ossets as of European origin, till lately for the most part blonds, though now showing many Scythian traits. But they are not physically Iranians "despite the Iranian and Asiatic origin of their language," as shown by Max Kowalewsky[1314]. On the whole, therefore, the Ossets may be taken as originally blond Europeans, closely blended with Scythians, and later with the other modern Caucasus peoples, who are mostly brown brachys. But Ernest Chantre[1315] allies these groups to their brown and brachy Tatar neighbours, and denies that the Ossets are the last remnants of Germanic immigrants into Caucasia.
The Caucasus Aborigines.
We have therefore in the Caucasus a very curious and puzzling phenomenon—several somewhat distinct groups of aborigines, mainly of de Lapouge's Alpine type, but all except the Ossets speaking an amazing number of non-Aryan stock languages. Philologists have been for some time hard at work in this linguistic wilderness, the "Mountain of Languages" of the early Arabo-Persian writers, without greatly reducing the number of independent groups, while many idioms traceable to a single stem still differ so profoundly from each other that they are practically so many stocks. Of the really distinct families the more important are:—the Kartweli of the southern slopes, comprising the historical Georgian, cultivated since the 5th century, the Mingrelian, Imeritian, Laz of Lazistan, and many others; the Cherkess (Circassian), the Abkhasian and Kabard of the Western and Central Caucasus; the Chechenz and Lesghian, the Andi, the Ude, the Kubachi and Duodez of Daghestan, i.e. the Eastern Caucasus. Where did this babel of tongues come from? We know that 2500 years ago the relations were much the same as at present, because the Greeks speak of scores of languages current in the port of Dioscurias in their time. If therefore the aborigines are the "sweepings of the plains," they must have been swept up long before the historic period. Did they bring their different languages with them, or were these specialised in their new upland homes? The consideration that an open environment makes for uniformity, secluded upland valleys for diversity, seems greatly to favour the latter assumption, which is further strengthened by the now established fact that, although there are few traces of the Palaeolithic epoch, the Caucasus was somewhat thickly inhabited in the New Stone Age.
The Iranians.
Crossing into Irania we are at once confronted with totally different conditions. For the ethnologist this region comprises, besides the tableland between the Tigris and Indus, both slopes of the Hindu-Kush, and the Pamir, with the uplands bounded south and north by the upper courses of the Oxus and the Sir-darya. Overlooking later Mongolo-Turki encroachments, a general survey will, I think, show that from the earliest times the whole of this region has formed part of the Caucasic domain; that the bulk of the indigenous populations must have belonged to the dark, round-headed Alpine type; that these, still found in compact masses in many places, were apparently conquered, but certainly Aryanised in speech, in very remote prehistoric times by long-headed blond Aryans of the Iranic and Galchic branches, who arrived in large numbers from the contiguous Eurasian steppe, mingled generally with the brachy aborigines, but also kept aloof in several districts, where they still survive with more or less modified proto-Aryan features. Thus we are at once struck by the remarkable fact that absolute uniformity of speech, always apart from late Mongol intrusions, has prevailed during the historic period throughout Irania, which has been in this respect as completely Aryanised as Europe itself; and further, that all current Aryan tongues, with perhaps one trifling exception[1316], are members either of the Iranic or the Galchic branch of the family. Both Iranic and Galchic are thus rather linguistic than ethnic terms, and so true is this that a philologist always knows what is meant by an Iranic language, while the anthropologist is unable to define or form any clear conception of an Iranian, who may be either of long-headed Nordic or round-headed Alpine type. Here confusion may be avoided by reserving the historic name of Persian[1317] for the former, and comprising all the Alpines under the also time-honoured though less known name of Tajiks.
The Tajiks.
Afghans.