Mediterraneans mingled in Northern Syria and Asia Minor with the
broad-headed Armenoid peoples who are represented in Europe by the
Alpine race. With them they ultimately formed the great Hittite
confederacy. These Armenoids were moving southwards at the very dawn
of Egyptian history, and nothing is known of their conquests and
settlements. Their pioneers, who were probably traders, appear to have
begun to enter the Delta region before the close of the Late Stone
Age.[22] The earliest outpourings of migrating Arabians may have been
in progress about the same time. This early southward drift of
Armenoids might account for the presence in southern Palestine, early
in the Copper Age, of the tall race referred to in the Bible as the
Rephaim or Anakim, "whose power was broken only by the Hebrew
invaders".[23] Joshua drove them out of Hebron,[24] in the
neighbourhood of which Abraham had purchased a burial cave from
Ephron, the Hittite.[25] Apparently a system of land laws prevailed in
Palestine at this early period. It is of special interest for us to
note that in Abraham's day and afterwards, the landed proprietors in
the country of the Rephaim were identified with the aliens from Asia
Minor--the tall variety in the Hittite confederacy.

Little doubt need remain that the Arabians during their sojourn in
Palestine and Syria met with distinctive types, and if not with pure
Armenoids, at any rate with peoples having Armenoid traits. The
consequent multiplication of tribes, and the gradual pressure
exercised by the constant stream of immigrants from Arabia and Asia
Minor, must have kept this part of Western Asia in a constant state of
unrest. Fresh migrations of the surplus stock were evidently propelled
towards Egypt in one direction, and the valleys of the Tigris and
Euphrates in another. The Semites of Akkad were probably the
conquerors of the more highly civilized Sumerians, who must have