The bronze age and the Celtic world - Universal History Library

66 THE BRONZE AGE AND THE CELTIC WORLD
The cause of this interruption is uncertain, but it is perhaps permissible to suggest that
the inhabitants of Hissarhk H., like their successors in Hissarlik VL, held the straits
and so restricted the traffic through it as to kill it. The disappearance of the type A.
culture must certainly be equated approximately with the rise of Hissarhk IL, for, as
we shall see, the disappearance of Type B. culture practically s5mchronises with the
destruction of that city.
As we have seen this people usually, and perhaps invariably cremated their dead,
for the skeletons referred to by M. Chvojka,'' may not have belonged to this period ;
any case they have not been described. We have, therefore, no direct evidence of
their physical characters and racial affinities. Some years ago Sir Arthur Keith, '^
discussing the origin of the " Bronze age invaders of Britain," a people which I shall
describe in the next chapter by the name of the Beaker-folk, argued with much force
that they must have set out from Gahcia. As they reached Britain about or perhaps
before 2000 B.C., they must have left Gahcia still earlier, that is to say about the time
that Tripolje settlements of type B. came to an end. For this reason I argued in 1916''
that the Tripolje culture was due to the Beaker-folk, and I see no reason to-day to
change my mind.
Now the Beaker-folk, often called Bronze Age or Round Barrow men, are rather
tall, strongly built, and with rather broad heads. They have often been termed Alpine,
but as Keith has shown, they differ in many important particulars from the typical
Alpines in the mountain zone. The difference lies mainly in this : they are taller,
more robust, their cranial index is lower, seldom rising above 84, while the conspicuous
flattening of the occiput is absent,'"
These characters suggest a cross between the Alpine and Nordic types, and this
is a possible solution, as they he midway between the Alpines of the mountain zone
and another people, to be described next, who occupied the steppe lands to the east,
and who closely resemble the Nordic tj^e. On the other hand the Beaker-folk type
seems to have remained fairly uniform, so that, if it is a cross, it is a stable cross, which
'7 Chvojka (1904) 223, quoted by Minns (1913) 140.
'8 Keith (1915) 2. 21.
19 Peake (1916) 1. 165, 166.
" Keith (1915) 2. 13.
in