The bronze age and the Celtic world - Universal History Library

154 THE BRONZE AGE AND THE CELTIC WORLD
swords, backed up as it is by the absence of Hallstatt iron swords from the Seine
valley, seems so decisive that I feel that the equation of the Q
of the bronze swords is beyond dispute.
peoples with the spread
But if this general reconstruction of the early history of the Wiro movements is to
be considered correct, in outhne at least, it must be shown that it will fit in with aU the
linguistic evidence available ; at any rate that it is not incompatible with it. For that
reason I propose in this chapter to summarise briefly, as I conceive them, the wanderings
of the Wiros over Europe and Asia, from their first departure from south-east Europe.
We have found reason for believing that before 3000 B.C., and probably for long
before that date, the Wiros had been occupying the Russian steppes east of the Dnieper,
and had perhaps wandered across the Volga into Turkestan. They were a nomad people,
living, perhaps, partly by hunting, but mainly by herding cattle on the grassy steppes,
and the parklands which fringed them on the north. They had tamed the horse,
and held this animal in great veneration. Its name constantly occurs as part of
their own names,^ they rode it Uke cow-boys "punching" their cattle, and if we may
judge from the habits of their descendants, it was what may be described as a cult
animal.
We have seen that they seem to have been of the Nordic type, but this statement
needs qualification. We are accustomed to speak of Nordics, Alpines and Mediterraneans,
and to describe their physical characters in considerable detail. We are well aware that
the population of every country in Europe is mixed, and contains many examples of
at least two of these types and a larger number of individuals who resemble one type
in this feature and another in that ; there are also many who display intermediate
characters. But from this mass of heterogeneous material we believe that we have
isolated these types, which we consider pure, and we treat the bulk of the population
as a mixture of these, var3dng in its components and their proportions in each region.
This postulates that there was a time, the race-making period of some writers,* when
each of these races was living, pure and unmixed, in some area of isolation.
That this position has led to clear thinking and has advanced the science of
physical anthropology is undoubted, but we have to consider whether it represents
3 King (1915) 215 fn. i McDougall (1920) ch. xv.