Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 51.djvu/750

732 between some of the highest mountains in Italy and the sea. He holds that they were here driven to cover in this corner of Tuscany by the developed Roman power in the south. Dr. Beddoe gives another explanation which is interesting. He believes this population to be the result of artificial colonization. Livy tells us that the Romans at one time, in pursuance of a long-settled policy, transported forty thousand Ligurians (?) to Samnium, filling their places with others from the south. If this artificial transplanting had been effected a sufficient number of times; if the Liguria of Livy had surely been this modern one instead of the Alpine ancient one; and thirdly, if we could thus account for the tallness of stature, certainly not of southern origin, we might place more reliance upon this ingenious hypothesis. As it is we can not think it far reaching enough. To us it seems more likely that we have to do rather with a population highly individualized by geographical isolation. Much of the region is very fertile; it is densely populated; it is closely bounded by mountain and sea. May it not contain a remnant of a more ancient people than others roundabout? This accords with both Sergi's and Livi's view. At a later time we shall be able to prove that in many respects the oldest, most primitive layer of population in Italy possessed many of these peculiar traits of the Garfagnanans and Luccheser. We incline to the belief that a bit of this primitive substratum has persisted in this place. The people of the island of Elba off the coast are quite similar to it. Insularity explains their peculiar physical traits. Why not environmental isolation about Lucca as well?

One of the most disputed points in the ethnological history of Europe concerns the origin of the ancient Etruscans, who dominated middle Italy a thousand years or more before the Christian era. Ancient Etruria covered what is now made up of the two compartimenti of Toscana and Roma—extending, that is to say, from the Arno to the Tiber. Here we find a sub-area of characterization, rich alike in soil and climate, somewhat isolated from the rest of the peninsula. This district is the center of one of the earliest highly evolved cultures in Europe. The Etruscans appear suddenly upon the scene, invading the territory of the Umbrians, who seem to have been indigenous to the soil, akin to the Oscians, Italians (Vituli), and other native peoples. With the advent of this immigrant people a great advance in culture seems to have occurred, from which Rome afterward derived her supremacy in that respect: for the Etruscans were the real founders of the Eternal City.

Popularly, the word "Etruscan" at once suggests the ceramic art; the progress effected in a short time was certainly startling. To give an idea of the sudden change, we have reproduced upon