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Character and Consequences of the later (historical) Migrations.

Armed with a nearly perfect writing system, and the correlated cultural appliances, the higher races soon took a foremost place in the general progress of mankind, and gradually acquired a marked ascendancy, not only over the less cultured populations of the globe, but in large measure over the forces of nature herself. With the development of navigation and improved methods of locomotion, inland seas, barren wastes, and mountain ranges ceased to be insurmountable obstacles to their movements, which within certain limits have never been arrested throughout all recorded time.

Thus, during the long ages following the first peopling of the earth by pleistocene man, fresh settlements and readjustments have been continually in progress, although wholesale displacements must be regarded as rare events. With few exceptions, the later migrations, whether hostile or peaceful, were, for reasons already stated[122], generally of a partial character, while certain insular regions, such as America and Australia, remained little affected by such movements till quite recent times. But for the inhabitants of the eastern hemisphere the results were none the less far-reaching. Continuous infiltrations could not fail ultimately to bring about great modifications of early types, while the ever-active principle of convergence tended to produce a general uniformity amongst the new amalgams. Thus the great varietal divisions, though undergoing slow changes from age to age, continued, like all other zoological groups, to maintain a distinct regional character.

The "Race" merges in the "People."

Flinders Petrie has acutely observed that the only meaning the term "race" now can have is that of a group of human beings, whose type has become unified by their rate of assimilation exceeding the rate of change produced by foreign elements[123]. We are also reminded by Gustavo Tosti that "in the actual state of science the word 'race' is a vague formula, to which nothing definite may be found to correspond. On the one hand, the original races can only be said to belong to palaeontology, while the more limited groups, now called races, are nothing but peoples, or societies of peoples, brethren by civilization more than by blood. The race thus conceived ends by identifying itself with nationality[124]." Hence it has been asked why, on the principle of convergence, a fusion of various races, if isolated long enough in a given area, may not eventually lead to a new racial type, without leaving any trace of its manifold origin[125].

Such new racial types would be normal for the later varietal groups, just as the old types were normal for the earlier groups, and a general application might be given to Topinard's famous dictum that les peuples seuls sont des réalités[126], that is, peoples alone—groups occupying definite geographical areas—have an objective existence. Thus, the notion of race, as a zoological expression in the sense of a pure breed or strain, falls still more into the background, and, as Virchow aptly remarks, "this term, which always implied something vague, has in recent times become in the highest degree uncertain[127]."

The distinguishing Characters of Peoples.

Hence Ehrenreich treats the present populations of the earth rather as zoological groups which have been developed in their several geographical domains, and are to be distinguished not so much by their bony structure as by their external characters, such as hair, colour, and expression, and by their habitats and languages. None of these factors can be overlooked, but it would seem that the character of the hair forms the most satisfactory basis for a classification of mankind, and this has therefore been adopted for the new edition of the present work. It has the advantage of simplicity, without involving, or even implying, any particular theory of racial or geographical origins. It has stood the test of time, being proposed by Bory de Saint Vincent in 1827, and adopted by Huxley, Haeckel, Broca, Topinard and many others.

The three main varieties of hair are the straight, the wavy and the so-called woolly, termed respectively Leiotrichous, Cymotrichous and Ulotrichous[128]. Straight hair usually falls straight down, though it may curl at the ends, it is generally coarse and stiff, and is circular in section. Wavy hair is undulating, forming long curves or imperfect spirals, or closer rings or curls, and the section is more or less elliptical. Woolly hair is characterised by numerous, close, often interlocking spirals, 1-9 mm. in diameter, the section giving the form of a lengthened ellipse. Straight hair is usually the longest, and woolly hair the shortest, wavy hair occupying an intermediate position.