PUBLICATIONS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MANCHESTER.
The Migrations of Early Culture.
Published by the University of Manchester at
THE UNIVERSITY PRESS (H. M. McKechnie, Secretary)
12, Lime Grove, Oxford Road, MANCHESTER
LONGMANS, GREEN & CO.
London: 39, Paternoster Row
New York: 443-449, Fourth Avenue and Thirtieth Street
Bombay: 8, Hornby Road
Calcutta: 303, Bowbazar Street
Madras: 167, Mount Road
The
Migrations of Early Culture
A study of the Significance of the Geographical
Distribution of the Practice of Mummification
as Evidence of the Migrations of Peoples and
the Spread of certain Customs and Beliefs
BY
GRAFTON ELLIOT SMITH, M.A., M.D., F.R.S.,
Professor of Anatomy in the University
MANCHESTER
AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS
12, LIME GROVE, OXFORD ROAD
LONGMANS, GREEN & CO.
London, New York, Bombay, etc.
1915
UNIVERSITY OF MANCHESTER PUBLICATIONS
No. CII.
PREFACE.
When these pages were crudely flung together nofate was contemplated for them other than that of publicationin the proceedings of a scientific society, as anappeal to ethnologists to recognise the error of their waysand repent. They were intended merely as a mass ofevidence to force scientific men to recognise and admitthat in former ages knowledge and culture spread inmuch the same way as they are known to be diffusedto-day. The only difference is that the pace of migrationhas become accelerated.
The re-publication in book form was suggested by theSecretary of the Manchester University Press, who thoughtthat the matters discussed in these pages would appealto a much wider circle of readers than those who aregiven to reading scientific journals.
The argument is compounded largely of extracts fromthe writings of recognised authorities, and the authordoes not agree with all the statements in the variousextracts he has quoted: this mode of presenting the casehas been adopted deliberately, with the object of demonstratingthat the generally admitted facts are capable ofa more natural and convincing explanation than that[vi]put forth ex cathedra by the majority of modern anthropologists,one in fact more in accord with all that ourown experience and the facts of history teach us ofthe effects of the contact of peoples and the spread ofknowledge.
Such a method of stating the argument necessarilyinvolves a considerable amount of repetition of statementsand phrases, which is apt to irritate the reader and offendhis sense of literary style. In extenuation of this admitteddefect it must be remembered that the brochurewas intended as a protest against the accusation ofartificiality and improbability so often launched againstthe explanation suggested here: the cumulative effect ofcorroboration was deliberately aimed at, by showing thatmany investigators employing the most varied kinds ofdata had indepen