In the author’s opinion these people have, so far as is known, nothing whatever to do with the tribe of Veneti at the head of the Adriatic, nor with the Veneti in western Europe in what is now Brittany. Of the former Ripley, p. 258, says that they have been generally accepted as of Illyrian derivation and cites D’Arbois de Jubainville, Von Duhn, Pigorini, Sergi, Pullé, Moschen and Tedeschi as authorities.
The Veneti in Italy are tall, broad-headed and some are blond, having mixed with the Teutons. They possessed some eastern habits, such as their marriage customs, as set forth in Herodotus. They were flourishing, wealthy and peaceful. Later they were driven to what is now Venice.
The Veneti in Gaul were a powerful maritime people, who carried on a sea trade with Britain. Strangely, perhaps, the ancient name of northern Wales was Venedotia. The name Veneto, however, has nothing to do with that of Vandal. For some theories as to the relationships of some of these Veneti, see Zaborowski, 3.
143 : 15. Gallicia and the Tripolje Culture. Cf. pp. 113–114. Gallicia is not far from the known location of the Brünn-Prêdmost race, which was dolichocephalic with a long face. This early appearance of a dolichocephalic race at the point where the dolichocephalic Nordics later came in contact with the Alpines is very significant.
The locality is in the neighborhood of the Tripolje area in southern Russia, for which see Minns, Scythians and Greeks, pp. 130–142, and Peake, 2, p. 164.
Minns says: “The first finds of Neolithic settlements in Russia were made near the village of Tripolje, on the Dnêpr, forty miles below Kiev, and this name has since been extended to the culture of a large area in southern Russia. The remains consist of so-called ‘areas’ with buildings which had wattled, clay-covered walls which were fired when dry to give them greater hardness. Pottery is present in great abundance and variety of forms. These bear painted decorations which are very artistic. There are a few figurines. The buildings were not dwellings but probably chapels. The homes were probably pit dwellings. Bodies of the dead were incinerated and deposited in urns.
“The theory has been abandoned that this was an autochthonous development, typical of the Indo-Europeans [Nordics] before they differentiated (cf. Chvojka, the first discoverer). Although similar to Ægean art this was earlier (see Von Stern, Prehistoric Greek Culture in the South of Russia). It came suddenly to an end and had no successor in that region. The people were agriculturalists long before the Scythians, but the next people who lived there were thorough nomads. Niederle (Slav. Ant., I) dates them 2000 B. C. The Tripolje people either moved south or were overwhelmed by new comers.” As Peake says, 2, pp. 164–165, here was a very likely point of contact between the Nordic and Alpine stocks, a mixture which, in the opinion of the author, may ultimately throw some light on the origin of the Dinaric and Beaker Maker types. Through this region both Alpines and Nordics must have passed many times in their wanderings. Here perhaps the Alpines became partly Nordicized, especially as to their language.
143 : 21. Sarmatians. There has been considerable confusion over these people, owing to the various ways in which the name has been spelled by early and later writers, and to the fact that they dwelt in the region where both Alpines and Nordics must have existed side by side. The name Sarmatians has been applied at one time to Nordics, at another to Alpines or even Mongolians, depending on the dates when they were discussed and the bias of various writers. We have no generic name for the Alpine peoples who must have been in this region in early times, except that of Sarmatians or Scythians. As the Scythians are apparently strongly Nordic in character, the name Sarmatians seemed more fitting to apply to the Alpine tribes who were certainly there. Not all authorities are agreed as to their affiliations, however, as has been said.
Jordanes declares that the Sarmatians and the Sauromatæ were the same people. Stephanus Byzantius states that the Syrmatæ were identical with the Sauromatæ. They are first mentioned by Polybius as being in Europe in 179 B. C. (XXV, II; XXVI, VI, 12). But in Asia we hear of them as early as 325 B. C., according to Minns, p. 38, who says that they gradually shifted westward, until in 50 A. D. they were in the Danube valley. Jordanes later speaks of the Carpathian mountains as the Sarmatian range. Mierow, in the notes to his translation of Jordanes, makes the Sarmatians a great Slavic people dwelling from the Vistula to the Don, in what is now Poland and Russia. (See also Hodgkin, Italy, vol. I, part I, p. 71.) According to Jordanes, the Sarmatians were beyond Dacia (the ancient Gothic land) and to the north (XII, 74). It is with these statements in mind that the author has designated them as Alpines.
Minns describes the Sarmatians as nomads of the Caspian steppes who wore armor like the Hiung-nu. About 325 B. C. there was a decline of the Scyths and they appear. During the second and third centuries A. D. was the time when they spread over the vast regions from Hungary to the Caspian. Minns, however, is firm in the belief that they were Iranians [Nordics], like the Alans, Ossetes, Jasy, etc. In the second half of the fourth century B. C. they were still east of the Don or just crossing; for the next century and a half we have very scanty knowledge of what was happening in the steppes. Procopius, III, II, also makes them Goths. (See the note to p. 66 : 16.) Feist, 5, p. 391, quotes Tacitus as to their being horse-loving nomads of south Russia. See also D’Arbois de Jubainville, 4, t. I, and Gibbon, chaps. XVIII, XXV, etc., for further discussions.