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and is centered in the Volhyn district of the Ukraine. With it, in the Late Neolithic Fatjanovo culture, are associated a few brachycephals which, except for head form, differ little from the rest. This “Danubian⁵⁵ type is not basically different from some of the Lower Egyptian and Delta groups.

The second type, commonest in Late Neolithic cemeteries of the Kiev government, is of the tall (stature = 171-172 cm.), hyperdolichocephalic variety, usually leptorrhine and high-vaulted, which we have called “Corded.⁵⁵ Crania of this variety are actually few in number, and prob­ably Late Neolithic in date. Metrically, they resemble the earliest Sume­rian skulls at el Ubaid.

Sergi, on a visit to Moscow some thirty years ago, measured over seventy male “Kurgan⁵⁵ crania from southern Russia, dating from all periods from the Neolithic to the pre-Christian Iron Age. These, selected as “Mediterraneans,⁵’ ⁴⁵ conform to the two types mentioned above. The main group, the smaller variety, fits our “Danubian⁵⁵ type, the larger, the “Corded.⁵⁵ In general, the metrical deviation of the total group from Mesopotamian figures is not great.

The result of this south Russian inquiry leads to several cumulative if tentative conclusions:

1. During the Neolithic, all known avenues of approach to Europe, from Gibraltar to the southern limit of the Russian forest, show only variants of Mediterranean or Galley Hill man. The Neolithic culture with its food-producing economy, and the Mediterranean race, are, as Sergi said, inseparably linked.

2. The special “Mediterranean⁵⁵ form, which had apparently brought agriculture to the countries north of the Iranian plateau and Black Sea, was not unlike others found in more southerly regions in which Old World agriculture is supposed to have originated.

3. The tall, hyperdolichocephalic high-vaulted variant of the basic Galley Hill stock, elsewhere to appear as the Corded people, was present, at least by the Late Neolithic, in southern Russia.

8. The danubian culture bearers

One of the most striking events of the Neolithic period in Europe was the gradual migration of farmers up the Danube Valley into central Europe. These new settlers stayed fairly close to the banks of the river and its tributaries, farming on patches of loess where the land would not need to be cleared by the axe. Southern Hungary, Moravia, Bohemia, and Silesia were areas which they found especially favorable, and in which they settled in greatest numbers. As they moved to the west, they finally

⁴⁵ Sergi, G., Europa, pp. 309-316. In Sergi’s own words, Eurafrican. This term has since taken on a narrower meaning in the hands of Mesopotamian archaeologists.

THE NEOLITHIC INVASIONS

105

reached southern Bavaria, Baden, and the north of France, especially the Paris basin. From southern Germany onward, they encountered the descendants of the Neolithic people who had entered by way of Gibraltar.

The river valleys which the Danubians occupied must have been rela­tively free of people; Mesolithic remains in the eastern and middle Danube Valley are very scarce, if not entirely absent.⁴⁶ We may therefore expect the remains of the Danubian immigrants to exhibit, without particular alteration, the physical characteristics of the population or populations from which they originated.

Danubian chronology is based on pottery types, particularly on tech­niques of decoration; the earliest Danubian, Period I, is typified by in­cised pottery with banded decoration, while the second and third periods mark the common use of painted pottery. The agriculture of the Danu­bians was a hoe-culture, for the characteristic tool is a hoe blade of flint, called a ^ccshoe-last celt.” Their domestic animals included the ox, sheep, and pig.

It is one of the problems which face the archaeologist in the future to discover the point of origin of Danubian pottery. Incised black ware, of the banded variety, undoubtedly came from somewhere to the east; from the country north of the Black Sea, or from Anatolia, whence it may have been influenced by the same source which produced the Merimdian of the Egyptian Delta. In this case, the two movements, the Danubian and that which passed over Gibraltar, may have come from a single original source in western Asia, and have moved into Europe from two different directions, converging in Switzerland, southern Germany, and France.

The painted pottery, on the other hand, shows definite Asiatic simi­larities; there was painted pottery in Iraq in the earliest known cultures; Anatolia contains some varieties of it; the Iranian plateau is said to be full of it; there is painted pottery at Anau in Turkestan; and painted pottery penetrated early into Kansu in China. Despite these occurrences, we do not yet know by which route or routes it entered Europe from the east. It may have come across the Bosporus, around the Black Sea, or from both quarters. Again, it may have travelled, farther east, either north or south of the Caspian.

The physical evidence at hand will hardly settle the problem of Danu­bian origins, although it will, in a fragmentary manner, dispel a number of unfounded hypotheses. In the material used in the present survey, seven­teen male crania associated with banded pottery,⁴⁷ and seven associated

⁴⁸ Fewkes, V. J., Goldman, H., Ehrich, R. W., BASP, #9, 1933, pp. 17-32. Also, personal communication of Dr. V. J. Fewkes.

47. Bayer, J., MAGW, vol. 51, 1921, pp. 46-47.

Lebzelter, V., MAGW, vol. 66, 1936, pp. 14-15; ibid., “Sitzungberichte,” p. 16.

Reche, O., AFA, vol. 35, 1908, pp. 232-237.

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with painted,⁴⁸ are all that can without doubt be attributed to the Danu­bian Neolithic^ These may be supplemented by a smaller female series.

The two series, Banded and Painted, are so close to each other anthropo- metrically that they may readily be pooled (see Appendix I, col. 11). Their type is a familiar one—a small Mediterranean, with cephalic indices ranging from 68 to 81, and a mean of 73.6. The mean cranial length is 185.5 mm., but individually they go as high as 196 mm. The vault height, 139 mm. is elevated in comparison to the other dimensions. The faces are short (116 mm.), and moderately narrow (130 mm.); both foreheads and jaws (minimum frontal 96 mm., bigonial 94 mm.) are also of moderate breadth. The orbits are low, with an orbital index mean of 80, the noses chamaerrhine, with a nasal index mean of 55. The highest orbitted skull has an orbital index of 91, the most leptorrhine a nasal index of 45.

Although this Danubian group is reasonably homogeneous, even with the small numbers available it is seen to include more than one type in the strictest sense. For example, the stature is low; Reche found a mean of 153 cm. for eight Banded male skeletons from Jordansmuhl, and in this small series four mesocephalic crania are associated with higher statures than are the purely dolichocephalic ones. Some of the skulls with higher orbits and longer vaults differ again from the majority. On the whole, however, the group is definitely dolicho- to mesocephalic, and definitely Mediterranean. As far as the criteria studied may be invoked, this series is very similar to Sergi’s Kurgan group from southern Russia, and may be considered to contain the same racial elements, although the Russian mate­rial as a whole is less homogeneous.

If we carry the comparison further, we find, again, strong resemblances in the Spanish Neolithic, and with all of the smaller Mediterranean groups. The Danubians undoubtedly represent another branch of the same racial group which entered Europe from North Africa through the southwestern avenue. Where they came from immediately before their arrival in Europe, however, it is impossible at the moment to tell. The Russian evidence, including that from Mariupol and Anau, leans heavily in favor of a trans-Euxine origin, but at the same time they might have come from Anatolia, from which we have as yet no Neolithic skeletal evidence. It is again possible that related elements from more than one geographical source made up the Danubian migrations.

We do not know what language the Danubians spoke, nor what was

⁴⁸ Donifci, A., ACAP, 1931, pp. 114-115.

Lebzclter, V., WPZ, vol. 15, 1928, pp. 35-41.

Nestor, I., BRGK, #119, 1933, p. 37.

Schiirer von Waldheim, Hella, MAGW, vols, 48-49, 1919, pp. 247-263.

Virchow, R., ZFE, vol. 22, 1890, p. 97.

Zimmerman, G., AJKS, vol. 10, 1935, pp. 227-236.