Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 51.djvu/753

Rh the Etruscan to the Greek is by them held to be very close. Much evidence is favorable to either side. To us it seems that Deecke is more nearly correct than either. He holds it to be probable that both centers of civilization contributed to the common product. In his opinion the Etruscans were crossed of the Tyrrhenians from Asia Minor and the Raseni from the Alps. All these views, it will be noted, concern civilization mainly. It is now time for us to examine the purely physical data at our disposition. Even supposing their culture to have been an immigrant from abroad, that need not imply a foreign ethnic derivation for the people themselves.

Inspection of our maps, in so far as they concern Etruria, convinces one that if the Etruscans were of entirely extra-Italian origin, their descendants have at the present time completely merged their identity in that of their neighbors; for no sudden transitions are anywhere apparent, either in respect of head form, stature, or pigmentation. On the whole, the trend of testimony appears to favor the German theory that the Etruscans made a descent upon Italy from the north; and that they were derived from the Rhætians, racial ancestors of the modern Swiss andother Alpine peoples. Thus it will be observed that Tuscany allies itself in head form to the north rather than the south. Especially is this brachycephaly noticeable about Bologna, just over the Apennines in Emilia. In this region, especially about Bologna, many of the richest archaeological finds of Etruscan remains have been made. There appears to be a sort of wedge of broad-headedness penetrating the peninsula nearly as far south as Rome. This could not be if the Etruscans had been ethnically of Greek or Semitic origin; for the Greeks were and are of a type quite similar to the Italians of the extreme south—of Mediterranean racial descent, in fact. Certainly no ethnic type of this kind has contributed largely to make up the modern Tuscan people.

To us it appears as if here, in the case of the Etruscans as of the Teutonic immigrants, we find reason to suspect that the ethnic importance of the invasion has been immensely overrated by historians and philologists. It seems quite probable that the Etruscan culture and language may have been determined by the decided impetus of a compact conquering class; and that the peasantry or lower orders of population remained quite undisturbed. It is certain that the remains of the people unearthed in their tombs betray very mixed characteristics. Crania are very rare, owing