Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 25, 1914.djvu/54

 42 of differing one from another, who still have more in common with each other, and are also more closely connected with the North-Western Amerinds, (as has been proved by the work of the Jesup Expedition), than with the Neo-Siberians.

Schrenck calls them the Palaeo-Asiatic, or North-east Palaeo-Asiatic, tribes, and supposes that they have occupied much larger territories in Northern, perhaps Central, Asia, and have been driven to the inhospitable north-eastern regions by more recent comers, partly Mongols, partly Turks or Finns, in one word by Neo-Siberians, or, using Castrén's name, Ural-Altaians.

Until linguistic and archaeological investigation shall have classified these people, I propose to keep the name of Palaeo-Siberians for Palaeo-Asiatics, and I shall do this so as not to confuse these old Asiatics with other races of Palaeo-Asiatics in the West and South of Asia. This term, as well as Neo-Siberians, does not demand any explanation, and is suitable for our comparative study of the natives of this region.

The Palaeo-Siberians are typical representatives of "people from the borders," like the Basques in the Iberian peninsula. These people seem to be historically the oldest in the region, but for some reason, either of their decay or of the greater number of the newcomers, they have been deprived of their land and forced to migrate to the often unfertile border lands.

In physical type the Palaeo- as well as Neo-Siberians have a more or less Mongolic type, especially in skull structure, although among the former sometimes quite a European type is to be found.

The Palaeo-Siberians have been called by Fr. Müller "The Arctic or Hyperborean races," in which term he includes also Aleuts and Eskimo. In Peschel's Völkerkunde