The generations pass. There is no violent revolution,
no break in continuity of history, nothing in the written records to
indicate an epoch-making change at any given moment; and yet after a
time we find that the old type has reappeared and that the people of
the locality do not substantially differ in physical form from the
people of other localities that did not suffer such an invasion. Does
this mean that gradually the children of the invaders have dwindled
and died out; or, as the blood is mixed with the ancient blood, has
there been a change, part reversion and part assimilation, to the
ancient type in its old surroundings? Do tint of skin, eyes and hair,
shape of skull, and stature, change in the new environment, so as to
be like those of the older people who dwelt in this environment? Do
the intrusive races, without change of blood, tend under the pressure
of their new surroundings to change in type so as to resemble the
ancient peoples of the land? Or, as the strains mingled, has the new
strain dwindled and vanished, from causes as yet obscure? Has the
blood of the Lombard practically disappeared from Italy, and of the
Visigoth from Spain, or does it still flow in large populations where
the old physical type has once more become dominant? Here in England,
the long-skulled men of the long barrows, the short-skulled men of the
round barrows, have they blended, or has one or the other type
actually died out; or are they merged in some older race which they
seemingly supplanted, or have they adopted the tongue and civilization
of some later race which seemingly destroyed them? We cannot say.
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