Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 50.djvu/793

Rh rule we have observed of a primitive broad-headed layer of population isolated in the uplands are offered by the two valleys of the Ziller in the northeast and of the Isel and Kalserthals just across the main chain of the Alps by Linz. In these places the converse of our proposition is true, since, as one ascends the valleys the broad heads become less frequent. No explanation for this has been offered; but I have a suspicion that it points to still a third layer of population. The Slavic peoples immigrating within the historic period are all very broad-headed. It is not impossible that this racial element which has overlaid the Teutons in parts of eastern Europe may have followed them into these valleys. Certain it is that Slavic skulls begin to occur in this region. It may have happened in this way: When the long-headed Teutons came, they drove the primitive Alpine population into the side valleys. Then, when the Slavs followed the Teutons, these latter types drifted up and back as well, merging with the original broad-headed stock to produce an intermediate type of head form. This would obviously be less broad than the new Slavic type in relative purity along the main channels of immigration.

The evidence from the Tyrol that in this part of the Alps the broad heads lie nearest the soil is sustained by similar testimony from the other end of the same mountain chain. Dr. Bedot has studied in some detail the population of the Valais—the valley of the upper Rhone in western Switzerland. Here precisely as in the Tyrol the side valleys are distinctly broader-headed than that of the Rhone. Wherever the foreigner has come he has lowered the cephalic index. Thus, for example, in the open valley of the Rhone the average index is but 82, while in the Gorge du Trient, leading over toward Chamounix, it rises 87. Few of the villages investigated are as isolated to-day as those in the Oetztal valleys of the Tyrol; but in proportion as they lie off the main track the index rises appreciably. The evidence is indubitable that the broad-headed type is the oldest and most primitive all through the Alps.

The fact which we have just indicated namely, that the racial type of the population of the Alpine areas changes with the character of the country will now serve us as a foothold for another advance in our argument. By it we shall hope to prove that while the Alpine racial type is intermediate in the pigmentation of the hair and eyes between the Teutonic populations on the north and the Mediterranean at the south, at the same time this physical trait is open to profound modification by the direct influences of environment. We shall hope to prove directly what we have already inferred from consideration of our general map of Europe;