overly altervista com. overly altervista org. In this chapter I propose to advance some ideas concerning the history of the origin of the races of Europe. These will concern almost only their later phases - namely from the Neolithic period onward. The earlier times are still largely shrouded in darkness.
The blond Nordid race evidanly has its origin in northern Europe - or at least not far to the southeast of this region. However, the Nordic tribes migrated quite early out of their poor homeland into the richer lands of the South. The northerners came as conquerors and colonists. In general however, they gradually disappeared into the earlier population, which was better adapted to the more southerly environment.
On purely linguistic grounds, the proto-Indo-Europeans appear to have originated through the mixture of at least two population-elements (Volkselemente), presumably a more southern and a more northern. If this view is correct, then the Indo-European group living furthest to the southeast, the Indo-Iranians, should be derived more from the southeast proto-element and less from the groups living further to the northwest. Now according to the ancient pictorial and literary representations, the early Indo-Iranians appear to have contained rather little of the blond racial element. In contrast, the rest of the Indo-European peoples appear to have been predominantly blond. Finally - and this is important - this applies also to the Tocharians. The Tocharians, who migrated to Central Asia, originally belonged to a western Indo-European group.
According to the ancient portraits, as well as the cranial evidence, the dark element of the early Indo-Europeans must have consisted predominantly of East-Mediterraneans. The blond Indo-European element, which derived from north-west Europe, must have been racially Nordid, if we employ this concept in its broadest sense.
The oldest certain Indo-European crania which we know from Central Germany to the southeast originate from the Stone-Copper-Age and the early Bronze Age. These crania are everywhere in this region always more or less longskulled and high-skulled. They are not long-skulled and lowskulled like the crania of the living Scando-Nordids. Extremely long and high were the crania of the late Neolithic East German Corded-Ceramic people. The Corded-Ceramic people are generally regarded as a rather important component of the Indo-European core.
We shall briefly survey the anthropological relations in northwest Germany and Scandinavia somewhat before 2000 B.C. This part of Europe nowadays constitutes the nuclear area of the Faelish and Scando-Nordid races. To the northwest of the Corded-Ceramic people, there lived in Germany the Megalith people. The Megalith people of Germany were typically long-skulled and low-skulled, and in relation to face and nose rather Faelish in race. On the Scandinavian peninsula we find among groups, who perhaps had not yet been Indo-Europeanized, likewise long and low crania, but narrower faces and noses.
These two groups, the one in northwest Germany and the other in Scandinavia, were thus racially related to one another, as well as to the blond proto-Indo-Europeans. We can perhaps consider the three groups as three subraces of the Nordid race - namely, the Faelish subrace, the Scando-Nordid subrace, and also the long- and high-skulled East-Nordid subrace. The East-Nordid should be regarded as a subrace of the Nordid race, since it resembled the other two subraces in so many anthropological traits. The region of origin of all three subraces evidently bordered on one another.
The racial and cultural position of the West-Indo-Europeans is well illustrated by the blond, long- and high-skulled type. Thereby, their region of origin is restricted to the border land between Central Europe and East Europe. In the earliest times the Indo-Europeans were probably still half-dressed in the summer. Blond men could not have lived long in areas further to the southeast in Europe. This is especially so because at that time the post-glacial dry and warm climate-maximum still continued.
In comparison, high-skulled populations have not penetrated far to the northwest of Europe. We find a rather strong racial and cultural contrast between the Thuringian Corded-Ceramic people and their Megalithic neighbors to the west. This indicates that the former are migrants from southeast Europe. Therefore, one could place the Indo-European homeland in the bess-earth and steppe-forests (at that time) east of Thuringia (see Map 20). On bio-climatological grounds, this Indo-European homeland should not be searched for much more to the east.
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