FIG. 111.—Same as Fig. [110], seen in profile.
(Phot. Chantre.)
As to the somatic characters of the other Caucasians, we know little of those of the Cherkess (sub-brachycephalic, of medium height), but we are better informed in regard to the Lesgians and the Kartvel. The contrast between the two groups is striking. The Lesgians are very brachycephalic (see [Appendix II.]), especially the tribes of the east; their stature is fairly high. To these characters are united others which, in their totality, produce the most singular effect; the prominent nose, straight or curved, recalls the Semites, while the projecting cheek-bones, broad face, and angles of the lower jaw directed outward, suggest the Mongols; lastly, the whole aspect becomes still more odd, owing to the light-grey or greenish eyes, and fair or chestnut hair, so common among the Lesgians (Figs. [110] and [111]).
Quite different are the characters of the Kartvel. In the first place, they form a less homogeneous group; we must distinguish in it between the eastern and the western Georgians. The former (Gruzins) are true brachycephals, though in a lesser degree than the Lesgians, while the latter (Mingrelians, Imers) are distinguished from all the other Caucasians by the elongated form of the head (see [Appendix II.]). The stature varies in harmony with the cranial forms; the Kartvel tribes with rounded heads have the shortest stature, and the dolichocephalic tribes the highest; light hair is less common in the two groups than among the Lesgians, but we find among the Georgians in general a great number of subjects in whom the iris has a particular yellow colour, a grey or greenish yellow. The Gruzins have a rather rounded face and broad nose, while the Imers have an elongated visage, thin nose, tight lips, pointed chin (Fig. [109]); their physiognomy reminds one of a goat’s head, according to Pantiukhof, who considers the Imers to be the purest representatives of the primitive Kartvels.[392]
CHAPTER X.
RACES AND PEOPLES OF ASIA.
ANCIENT INHABITANTS OF ASIA.—Prehistoric times—Pithecanthropus erectus (Dub.)—Ages of stone and metals.—PRESENT INHABITANTS OF ASIA.—Races of Asia—I. Peoples of Northern Asia—Yeniseian, Palæasiatic and Tunguse groups.—II. Peoples of Central Asia—Turkish, Mongolian, and Thibetan groups—Peoples of the south-west of Thibet and of South China (Lolo, Miao-tsé, Lu-tsé, etc.).—III. Peoples of Eastern Asia—Chinese, Coreans, and Japanese.—IV. Peoples of Indo-China—Aborigines, Mois, Kuis, Siam, Naga, etc.—More recent mixed populations: Annamese, Cambodians, Thai, etc.—V. Peoples of India—Castes—Dravidians and Kolarians—Indo-Aryans and unclassified populations—VI. Peoples of Anterior Asia—Iranians and Semites.
ANCIENT INHABITANTS OF ASIA.
Prehistoric Times.—It is a common practice to call Asia, or at least certain regions of Asia, “the cradle of mankind,” the “officina gentium.” The migrations and invasions of the Asiatic peoples into Europe, which took place from the most remote times, gave birth, naturally enough, to this idea among the western peoples (p. [317] et seq.). However, no serious data authorise us to say that the first man was born rather in Asia than Europe. Nowhere do we find there any traces of tertiary man.[393] Eugène Dubois discovered, it is true, quite close to the Asiatic continent in the very uppermost tertiary beds (upper pliocene) of the Island of Java, the bones of a being which he considers as intermediate between man and the anthropoid apes, and which he has called Pithecanthropus erectus (Figs. [112] and [113]). But Java belongs to-day as much to the Oceanian world as to Asia, and the Pithecanthropus is not altogether a man, either according to his discoverer or many other authorities. Some regard this being simply as a gigantic gibbon, while others (myself among the number) hold that he is a being more closely related to man than to the anthropoid apes, or even a man of a race inferior to all existing ones. If this last hypothesis be correct we must admit the existence of tertiary man in Asia, since it is highly probable that even at the end of the tertiary period the islands of Sumatra and Java were connected with the great continent by the Malay peninsula.[394]