interval of over twenty thousand years.[15] It is noteworthy,
therefore, to find that in south-western Asia at the present day one
particular racial type predominates over all others. Professor Ripley,
who summarizes a considerable mass of data in this connection, refers
to it as the "Iranian", and says: "It includes the Persians and Kurds,
possibly the Ossetes in the Caucasus, and farther to the east a large
number of Asiatic tribes, from the Afghans to the Hindus. These
peoples are all primarily long-headed and dark brunets. They incline
to slenderness of habit, although varying in stature according to
circumstances. In them we recognize at once undoubted congeners of our
Mediterranean race in Europe. The area of their extension runs off
into Africa, through the Egyptians, who are clearly of the same race.
Not only the modern peoples, but the Ancient Egyptians and the
Phoenicians also have been traced to the same source. By far the
largest portion of this part of Western Asia is inhabited by this
eastern branch of the Mediterranean race." The broad-headed type
"occurs sporadically among a few ethnic remnants in Syria and
Mesopotamia".[16] The exhaustive study of thousands of ancient crania
in London and Cambridge collections has shown that Mediterranean
peoples, having alien traits, the result of early admixture, were
distributed between Egypt and the Punjab.[17] Where blending took
place, the early type, apparently, continued to predominate; and it
appears to be reasserting itself in our own time in Western Asia, as
elsewhere. It seems doubtful, therefore, that the ancient Sumerians
differed racially from the pre-Dynastic inhabitants of Egypt and the
Pelasgians and Iberians of Europe. Indeed, the statuettes from Tello,
the site of the Sumerian city of Lagash, display distinctively
Mediterranean skull forms and faces. Some of the plump figures of the
later period suggest, however, "the particular alien strain" which in
Egypt and elsewhere "is always associated with a tendency to the