The Geographical Position Of Ancient Teutondom The Stone Age Of Prehistoric Teutondom

: MEDIAEVAL MIGRATION SAGAS.
: Teutonic Mythology

The northern position of the ancient Teutons necessarily had the effect

that they, better than all other Aryan people, preserved their original

race-type, as they were less exposed to mixing with non-Aryan elements.

In the south, west, and east, they had kinsmen, separating them from

non-Aryan races. To the north, on the other hand, lay a territory which,

by its very nature, could be but sparsely populated, if it was inhabited

at all, before it was occupied by the fathers of the Teutons. The

Teutonic type, which doubtless also was the Aryan in general before much

spreading and consequent mixing with other races had taken place, has,

as already indicated, been described in the following manner: Tall,

white skin, blue eyes, fair hair. Anthropological science has given them

one more mark--they are dolicocephalous, that is, having skulls whose

anterior-posterior diameter, or that from the frontal to the occipital

bone, exceeds the transverse diameter. This type appears most pure in

the modern Swedes, Norwegians, Danes, and to some extent the Dutch, in

the inhabitants of those parts of Great Britain that are most densely

settled by Saxon and Scandinavian emigrants; and in the people of

certain parts of North Germany. Welcker's craniological measurements

give the following figures for the breadth and length of Teutonic

skulls:



Swedes and Hollanders, 75--71

Icelanders and Danes, 76--71

Englishmen, 76--73

Holsteinians, 77--71

Hanoverians, The vicinity of Jena, Bonn, and Cologne, 77--72

Hessians, 79--72

Swabians, 79--73

Bavarians, 80--74



Thus the dolicocephalous form passes in Middle and Southern Germany into

the brachycephalous. The investigations made at the suggestion of

Virchow in Germany, Belgium, Switzerland, and Austria, in regard to

blonde and brunette types, are of great interest. An examination of more

than nine million individuals showed the following result:



Germany, 31.80% blonde, 14.05% brunette, 54.15% mixed.

Austria, 19.79% blonde, 23.17% brunette, 57.04% mixed.

Switzerland, 11.10% blonde, 25.70% brunette, 61.40% mixed.



Thus the blonde type has by far a greater number of representatives in

Germany than in the southern part of Central Europe, though the latter

has German-speaking inhabitants. In Germany itself the blonde type

decreases and the brunette increases from north to south, while at the

same time the dolicocephalous gives place to the brachycephalous.

Southern Germany has 25% of brunettes, North Germany only 7%.



If we now, following the strict rules of methodology which Latham

insists on, bear in mind that the cradle of a race- or language-type

should, if there are no definite historical facts to the contrary,

especially be looked for where this type is most abundant and least

changed, then there is no doubt that the part of Aryan Europe which the

ancestors of the Teutons inhabited when they developed the Aryan tongue

into the Teutonic must have included the coast of the Baltic and the

North Sea. This theory is certainly not contradicted, but, on the other

hand, supported by the facts so far as we have any knowledge of them.

Roman history supplies evidence that the same parts of Europe in which

the Teutonic type predominates at the present time were Teutonic already

at the beginning of our era, and that then already the Scandinavian

peninsula was inhabited by a North Teutonic people, which, among their

kinsmen on the Continent, were celebrated for their wealth in ships and

warriors. Centuries must have passed ere the Teutonic colonisation of

the peninsula could have developed into so much strength--centuries

during which, judging from all indications, the transition from the

bronze to the iron age in Scandinavia must have taken place. The

painstaking investigations of Montelius, conducted on the principle of

methodology, have led him to the conclusion that Scandinavia and North

Germany formed during the bronze age one common domain of culture in

regard to weapons and implements. The manner in which the other domains

of culture group themselves in Europe leaves no other place for the

Teutonic race than Scandinavia and North Germany, and possibly

Austria-Hungary, which the Teutonic domain resembles most. Back of the

bronze age lies the stone age. The examinations, by v. Dueben, Gustaf

Retzius, and Virchow, of skeletons found in northern graves from the

stone age prove the existence at that time of a race in the North which,

so far as the characteristics of the skulls are concerned, cannot be

distinguished from the race now dwelling there. Here it is necessary to

take into consideration the results of probability reached by

comparative philology, showing that the European Aryans were still in

the stone age when they divided themselves into Celts, Teutons, etc.,

and occupied separate territories, and the fact that the Teutons, so far

back as conclusions may be drawn from historical knowledge have

occupied a more northern domain than their kinsmen. Thus all tends to

show that when the Scandinavian peninsula was first settled by

Aryans--doubtless coming from the South by way of Denmark--these Aryans

belonged to the same race, which, later in history, appear with a

Teutonic physiognomy and with Teutonic speech, and that their

immigration to and occupation of the southern parts of the peninsula

took place in the time of the Aryan stone age.



For the history of civilisation, and particularly for mythology, these

results are important. It is a problem to be solved by comparative

mythology what elements in the various groups of Aryan myths may be the

original common property of the race while the race was yet undivided.

The conclusions reached gain in trustworthiness the further the Aryan

tribes, whose myths are compared, are separated from each other

geographically. If, for instance, the Teutonic mythology on the one hand

and the Asiatic Aryan (Avesta and Rigveda) on the other are made the

subject of comparative study, and if groups of myths are found which are

identical not only in their general character and in many details, but

also in the grouping of the details and the epic connection of the

myths, then the probability that they belong to an age when the

ancestors of the Teutons and those of the Asiatic Aryans dwelt together

is greater, in the same proportion as the probability of an intimate and

detailed exchange of ideas after the separation grows less between these

tribes on account of the geographical distance. With all the certainty

which it is possible for research to arrive at in this field, we may

assume that these common groups of myths--at least the centres around

which they revolve--originated at a time when the Aryans still formed,

so to speak, a geographical and linguistic unity--in all probability at

a time which lies far back in a common Aryan stone age. The discovery of

groups of myths of this sort thus sheds light on beliefs and ideas that

existed in the minds of our ancestors in an age of which we have no

information save that which we get from the study of the finds. The

latter, when investigated by painstaking and penetrating archaeological

scholars, certainly give us highly instructive information in other

directions. In this manner it becomes possible to distinguish between

older and younger elements of Teutonic mythology, and to secure a basis

for studying its development through centuries which have left us no

literary monuments.



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