now generally accepted, at the close of the Fourth Glacial Period, the author arrives at the Aurignacian Age--that great epoch which witnessed the first arrival in Europe of the representatives of Modern Man, the Cro-Magnon race, some 25,000 or 30,000 years ago, and the beginnings of civilization and religion.

When they arrived the Continent of Europe still stretched far out into the Atlantic and the Polar Ocean; the Baltic was still an inland lake; so was the Mediterranean, and a land-bridge united Africa to Italy, while the Rhine, Elbe and Thames flowed into the sea to the North of the Dogger Bank, and a great river, carrying the waters of the Severn and the rivers of what is now Northern France, flowed down the English Channel.

The remains discovered at Gallow Hill in Kent, at Tilbury and at Piltdown in Sussex belong to types of Man showing affinities with Neanderthal, or, in the latter case, even earlier; the only representative of the Cro-Magnons was found in the Paviland Cave in the Gower Peninsula in South Wales, as far back as 1923, by Dr. Buckland, and was first known as "The Red Lady of Paviland"; on examination, however, the remains proved to be those of a tall man; from the circumstances connected with this burial, the red ochre with which the body was smeared and the shells and other accompaniments, further light was thrown upon the beliefs and rites of the Cro-Magnons in Aurignacian times to that which had been already gleaned from the corresponding burials in France, at Mentone and elsewhere. Of these the author makes full use in discussing the folk-lore which survives to the present day. After a detailed account of the Paviland discoveries the author pursues the story of the great Volkswünderungen, which brought successive streams of settlers, colonists and traders to our shores after the severance of the British Isles from the Continent, and shows that the present inhabitants are blended of many types, and that the blue-eyed, fair-haired people are by no means all descended from Celtic or Scandinavian stock, but ascend far higher, while the dark-haired and black-eyed people are by no means all of Iberian lineage. The blendings and outcrop of racial types reaches far back into antiquity and there is a good deal of Cro-Magnon blood in the modern Englishman to-day.

The last half of the book is devoted to a fine study of the folklore and folk-customs which still survive in our midst, as we have already hinted, such as those connected with the cult of Trees and Stones and Wells, the rites performed at Seed-time and Harvest and such-like, which take us back to the worship of the great Mother Goddess and her Surrogates, and explains the smearing of the corpse with red ochre, and the shells, which all speak of Birth and Death and the procuring of immortality; this study includes one of the best accounts of Druidism that we have met with.

The author touches upon the so-called "Pictish Question," and would appear to imply that the Picts were Celts of the Goidelic branch and connects them with the Pictones of Pictavia, the modern Poictiers; but his argument is not convincing, and we must conclude that the origin of this mysterious people is still sub judice.

The story ends with the coming of the Romans, and here we must beg leave to differ from the author in his estimate of the effect of the Roman conquest on the peoples of Britain. No doubt they were in a higher state of civilization than our grandfathers supposed, but they were divided by internecine conflicts much as the Irish are to-day, and the imposing of the pax Romana on the warring tribes and the introduction of Roman arts was all to the good; the main reason why the Germans are still Huns is because they were never brought under the influence of the Roman civilization.

This handsome book will become the standard authority upon its subject; the illustrations, maps and plans, and the index are quite excellent.-H. J. D. ASTLEY.

THE PHOENICIAN ORIGIN OF BRITONS, SCOTS AND ANGLO-SAXONS. By L. A. WADDELL, LL.D., C.B., C.I.E. (Williams and Norgate). 158. net. 1924.

THIS is a remarkable book. Its author, Lieut.-Col. Waddell, is well-known as a traveller and anthropologist, particularly in matters relating to Tibet and Buddhism; many years ago he wrote on these subjects, publishing several articles in The Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics, and was for some time Professor of Tibetan in London University. This book is the outcome of subsequent

studies in Eastern problems, especially in regard to the Sumerians, Hittites and Phoenicians.

The author undertakes to prove that these were all one race, and belonged to the Aryan branch of the human family, contrary to all that has previously been held. He explains that the Hittites were an offshoot of the ancient Sumerians and that the Phoenicians. were the sea-faring portion of the great Hittite empire and were the sailors, explorers and traders of antiquity. This, of course, has always been understood to be true of the Semitic Phoenicians, who are now deprived of their role! The author's Aryan Phoenicians, from their centre in Asia Minor are supposed to have migrated East and West, and are discovered as the Barats, the ruling caste who conquered and civilized the aboriginal inhabitants of India, and as the Britons, who under Brute the Trojan (for the Trojans belonged to the same great race) performed the same office for the aboriginal Ibero-Pictish inhabitants of Britain, about 1103 B.C.; previous colonies of these adventurous sailors having traded with the country since 2,800 B.C. All the so-called Aryan languages are dialects or debased descendants of the original Sumerian tongue, and this may be recognised in our own language to-day; e.g., the words GAL KUD on a Sumerian tablet of about 4000 B.C. (the Hoffman Tablet), are equivalent to "Good Girl," (Gal, Slang, says our author). Well may the tyro be warned of the pitfalls awaiting the unwary philologist!

The arguments put forward in more than 400 pages to prove this Phoenician origin of the Britons, Scots and Anglo-Saxons, (we will leave the Barats of India alone, as the author does for the most part, promising to deal with them in his next book The Origin of the Aryans), are most ingenious and clever, and the book is a monument of erudition in little known regions of religion and folk-lore; but what is the evidence relied upon for Britain? It all hangs upon the author's interpretation of the inscriptions on a monolithic stone near Newton or Shevack in Aberdeenshire; on this stone, according to his reading of both the inscriptions, the one in Ogam and the other in a kind of de based capitals, the name of Partolon, who describes himself as Phoenician, Cilician (i.e. Hittite) and Prut, i.e., Briton, occurs; now Part-olon, according to Nennius and Gildas was king in Britain of the line of Brute the Trojan about 400 B.C.; this leads the author into many chapters explaining

the titles, and into a lengthy vindication of the historical accuracy of the ancient traditional history of Britain in the Chroniclers, which has always been considered a mere legendary figment of monkish imagination, whence derived is not known, but on a par with other legendary tales as to the early history of most nations. Col. Waddell refers to various other readings which have been given of his stone, but not to the one which gives his whole theory the coup de grace, viz., that of Mr. E. W. B. Nicholson, late Bodleian Librarian at Oxford, who interpreted it quite clearly in his book Keltic Researches, as one of some fourteen Boundary Stones erected by Pictish landowners to mark the confines of their estates in the tenth and eleventh centuries A.D., for he reads the inscription in debased capitals as meaning "the dwelling of Mac Nun Mor with the good wish of Lord Malisius and of Unggus, newly made," and explains that Malisius may be one of two Bishops of that name, who ruled in Alba, the one in 960, the other 1031 A.D. The Ogam inscription agrees, and the impossibility of Col. Waddell's contention is proved by the fact that Ogam writing was not invented till Christian times by Irish monks; a Swastika occurs in the fourth line, and with this the Colonel makes great play, but, as Mr. Nicholson says "This is not unusual on Christian monuments"; the language, where it is not Latin, is good Pictish Goidelic; of his interpretation Mr. Nicholson says: "That this simple explanation is the true one will scarcely be doubted by any one who reads the 12th century records of land-grants in the Book of Deer." Cadit quaestio: the pyramid so laboriously erected by Col. Waddell, is raised upon its apex and topples over and crashes into ruins at a touch.

This being the case, it is unnecessary to follow the author further into the ramifications of his argument, which extends over many untrodden byways, and contains much useful and instructive information. He deals with Sun worship in all its varieties; discusses all kinds of symbols and mystic signs; goes into intricate questions of folklore and folk customs; all of which are, however, beside the mark in the collapse of the main argument. Among other things we are informed that John the Baptist, our Lord Himself, and most of the Apostles were Gentile Aryan Phoenicians, and not Jews as we have hitherto supposed! Among the signs discussed a large space is devoted to Cup- and Ring-Markings,

which our author attempts to interpret by means of similar signs on Sumerian and other monuments; but such markings as occur in all parts of the world in prehistoric times and among primitive races to-day, cannot be explained on such lines; the author might usefully consult what the present writer has said on the subject in the Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics, Vol. IV., and elsewhere. The author must be congratulated on the illustrations—though, incidentally, it must be said that the photograph of the Shevack Stone in Mr. Nicholson's book is much clearer than that in this one-and upon the infinite pains he must have taken during the years of study of which this book is the outcome; we regret that, as regards its main thesis, it is labour wasted; but one fact stands. out the inhabitants of Britain when Cæsar came were not painted savages roaming wild in the woods," but a highly civilized and cultured people, and to this the Phoenicians had contributed not a little. As Mr. Donald Mackenzie reminded us, the Phoenician type "occasionally crops up" in Cornwall.-H. J. D. ASTLEY.

66

THE ENGLISH VILLAGE. THE ORIGIN AND DECAY OF ITS COMMUNITY. AN ANTHROPOLOGICAL INTERPRETATION. By HAROLD PEAKE, F.S.A. (Benn Bros., Limited, S, Bouverie Street, E.C.4.)

WE must apologise for a somewhat belated review of Mr. Peake's book which has only reached us lately, and has been followed by a more recent work on The Bronze Age and the Celtic World." The material of this book now under review-(it bears a name which is unfortunately the same as one by another author, but there is no copy-right in titles, though it is usually deemed a matter of courtesy to avoid using a title that has already been adopted by someone else,) formed the substance of a course of lectures delivered to the working men of Newbury.

The result of converting lectures into a book sometimes leads to unfortunate and what the Apostle calls "vain repetitions," and it is tiresome to read on several pages the same facts stated in almost identical words. Thus on pp. 23, 102 and 131 and possibly elsewhere, we are informed that Maitland was of opinion that in early days the Saxon village was free and not subject to a lord, and also the explanation is given in each case that this statement