It seems strange that Sergi should find traces of his Mediterranean race in Russia. Did these find their way so far northward directly from the Mediterranean area or are they merely sporadic groups more resistant to modifying influences; or are they perhaps groups which have separated from the westward migration at the Hellespont and turned northward? The Nordic peoples of Europe are perhaps after all not so far from their Mediterranean cousins. The Mediterranean race still holds its own around the Mediterranean. In France its blood is much mixed and greatly diluted with later infusions. In England it has generally been almost completely swamped by Aryan invasions.
Neither of the two routes already sketched leads directly into middle or northern Europe. The trend in both is toward the Mediterranean. We must now consider the third and last route, which is of chief interest to us. We have already seen that the Black Sea prevented all migrations northward from Asia Minor except at the Hellespont. Eastward from the Black Sea lies the Caspian, probably much larger in glacial times. The two seas are separated by the forbidding, almost unbroken, mountain barrier of the Caucasus; but a narrow passage at each end is left. East of the Caspian Sea must lie the point where a more northerly westward route diverges from the road through Asia Minor. Our third route starts, therefore, from the northern edge of the Iranian plateau, perhaps mostly from Turkestan, and runs westward north of the great barrier of seas and mountains just described. It follows the great steppe or prairie which stretches through southern Siberia and Russia into Hungary. Its western portion lies along the valley of the lower Danube, the great east and west artery of communication and migration through Europe. It lies farther north than any other great route, and leads over steppe instead of through forest. As the Arabia-Africa route was the first to be traversed, this may well have been the last. Furthermore, the route through Asia Minor, ending in a sort of cul de sac, may easily have become well inhabited and hence less open before the Neolithic period had begun in northern Europe.
It was by no means the most attractive route. It offered far less to people in the collecting stage than the well-watered parklands of Asia Minor. The steppe offers to the hunter few means of concealment or approach to the game. The animals are swift and wary. In any migration of peoples toward the frontier, the hunters lead the advance and spread out like an army of scouts. Every river which crossed the steppe would offer to them a tempting by-road leading off into the forests of Siberia or Russia. How deeply they would penetrate into the primeval forest or away from the river valleys is still a question. Very likely they would find their best hunting-grounds not very far from the northern edge of the steppe, where the forest is less dense. This question we cannot yet answer. But most of European Russia is well watered, and here these hunters would find themselves at home. The main route of the steppe would be left for a very different population. The piedmont zone of grasslands in Turkestan was an ideal land for primitive agriculturists practising a hoe-culture, as at Anau. The northern edge of this steppe zone, where it joined the forest, may have been equally favorable.
But the piedmont zone and the river banks of the steppe must have been occupied by agriculturists before 10,000 B. C., probably much earlier. Pumpelly’s explorations seem to warrant this view. Alongside of agriculture, but at a somewhat later date, sheep-herding and cattle-raising were practised. But the nomad of these days was a less dangerous neighbor than at later times because the horse had not yet been domesticated. During these post-glacial times he would be less dangerous here than farther south around Arabia, when the dryness which finally produced the Arabian desert was making itself felt, burning up the pastures and leaving only the choice between starvation and migration in mass. Again comparing this migration with the pioneer movements of peoples in historic times, we have good reason to believe that the sheep-herders and cattle men—and they were probably both at the same time—advanced faster than the agriculturists, who were more bound to the soil. Between herdsmen and farmers there were almost certainly many intermediate grades. We may be fairly confident, therefore, that the movement or tide along this route did not take the form of a procession marching in lock-step, but of a series of waves, generally with hunters in front and along the forest flank, herdsmen in the middle, and farmers bringing up the rear and making permanent settlements at favored spots.
Hunters had been spreading northward at least as early as the beginning of Upper Paleolithic times. Farming on the lowest grades of agriculture is essentially Neolithic. A town or village had risen at Susa 20,000 years ago. Neolithic civilization probably reached Crete nearly or quite 15,000 years ago. Small Sumerian cities were being founded in southern Babylonia at or before 5000 B. C. Population was increasing in density in the Iranian plateau, as almost every mountain region with its healthy atmosphere and low death-rate quickly becomes overpopulated. Our pioneer column was continually pressed forward by new recruits from the rear as well as by its natural increase. We have practically no records of the march. But our sketch is no mere invention of fancy. It applies to every great migration of peoples extending over centuries or millennia. The last illustration was the great westward movement in America beginning a century or two ago, and still far from completed.
The Hungarian plain is the last extension of the great south Russian steppe far into Europe. West of this anything like nomadic life was practically impossible. Here our pioneers scattered and followed the river valleys, settling more or less permanently the loess deposits as farmers, but on less favorable soils devoting themselves more largely to cattle-raising. The latter form of life seems to have been more common on the great North German plain, though accompanied by much hunting, a genuine pioneer life.
We may now turn to Europe and consider the distribution of its races and peoples.
Of the route of migration of the Neanderthal race we have no sure knowledge. The wide and rich distribution of ancient Paleolithic implements in Egypt and northern Africa tempts us to guess that it represents a very early migration along the Arabian route after the negroids and before the Hamites and Semites. We have glanced at the origin of the Cro-Magnon people, and have discovered our uncertainty. The Tardenoisian culture, with its pygmy flints, is exceedingly wide-spread,[144] and seems to have started in Europe in the Mediterranean region, arriving from still farther east. We are tempted to guess that the great bulk of westward migrations in Paleolithic times followed the southern, Arabian, route, but there were probably exceptions.
Coming down to Neolithic times we find the Hamitic peoples in Africa, apparently representing the first wave in the migration of the Mediterranean race. It may well have arrived at its present home long before the beginning of the Neolithic period. It had followed the southern route. Peoples physically and racially closely akin to the Hamites followed, probably in successive waves. The Tardenoisian people, if their culture was carried by a distinct people, may represent an early wave. The bulk of the population of Greece, Italy, and Spain followed, but migration seems to shift gradually from the Arabian route to that through Asia Minor, as the zone of most favorable climatic conditions moved slowly northward. Before the close of the Neolithic period the relations between Greece, Crete, and western Asia Minor have become so marked and close that they almost represent one culture and people.
The Mediterranean race, thus established in Europe, spread northward. It could not cross the Alpine barrier. It followed the Rhone valley and the Atlantic coast, and furnished the basic population in France and Great Britain, though here frequently crowded back into corners or submerged by later invasions, peaceful or otherwise. It furnished the great link or means of communication between the Mediterranean basin and the far north of Europe. Schliz has some reason for calling these megalith people largely traders.