Chapter 10
THE NORDIC RACE OUTSIDE OF EUROPE

WE find few traces of Nordic characters outside of Europe. When Egypt was invaded by the Libyans from the west in 1230 B.C., they were accompanied by blond "sea people," probably the Achaean Greeks, and it is interesting to note that a certain amount of reddish blondness exists today on the northern slopes of the Atlas Mountains. That it is of Nordic origin we may be certain, but through what channels it came we have no means of knowing. There is no historic invasion of north Africa by Nordics except the Vandal conquests, but there does not seem to be any probability that this small Teutonic tribe left behind it any physical trace in the native population. The Philistines and Amorites of Palestine may have been of the Nordic race. Certain references to the size of the sons of Anak and to the fairness of David, whose mother was an Amoritish woman, point vaguely in this direction. References in Chinese annals to the green eyes of the Wu-suns or Hiung-Nu in central Asia are the only sure evidence we have of the Nordic race in contact with the peoples of eastern Asia. The so-called blondness of the hairy Ainus of the northern islands of Japan seems to be due to a trace of what might be called Proto-Nordic blood. The hairiness of these people is in sharp contrast to their Mongoloid neighbors, but it is a generalized character common to the highest and the lowest races of man. The primitive Australoids and the highly specialized Scandinavians are among the most hairy populations in the world. So in the Ainus this somatological peculiarity is merely the retention of a very primitive trait. The occasional brown or greenish eye, and the sometimes fair complexion of the Ainus, are, however, suggestive of Nordic affinities, and of an extreme easterly extension of Proto-Nordics at a very early period. The skull shape of the Ainus is extremely dolichocephalic, while the broad cheek bones indicate a Mongolian cross, as in the Esquimaux. The Ainus, like many other small, mysterious people, are probably merely the remnants of one of the many early races that are fast fading into extinction. The division of man into species is very ancient, and the chief races of the earth are merely the successful survivors of the long struggle. Many species, subspecies, and races have vanished utterly, except for reversional characters which we find in the larger races. The only Nordics in Asia Minor, so far as we know, were the Phrygians who came across the Hellespont about 1400 B.C. as part of the same migration which brought the Achaeans into Greece; the Cimmerians who entered by the same route and also through the Caucasus about 650 B.C., and still later, in 270 B.C., the Gauls who, coming from north Italy through Thrace, crossed the Hellespont and founded Galatia. So far as our present information goes, little or no trace of these invasions remains in the existing populations of Anatolia. The expansions of the Persians and the Aryanization of their empire, and the conquests of the Nordics east and south of the Caspian-Aral Sea, will be discussed in connection with the spread of Aryan languages.