oples, we can hardly expect to find a pure physical type among the
present Basques. All that we can expect is to be able to differentiate them
from their neighbours. The earliest notice we have of the Basques, by
Einhard (778), speaks of their wonderful agility. The next, the pilgrim of
the Codex Calixtinus (12th century), says the Basques are fairer in face
(_facie candiliores_) than the Navarrese.

Anthropologists no longer rely solely on craniology, and the measurement of
the skull, to distinguish race. The researches of Aranzadi (1889 and 1905)
and of Collignon (1899) show them as less fair than northern Europeans, but
fairer than any of the southern races; not so tall as the Scandinavians,
Teutons or British, but taller than their neighbours of southern races.
There is no tendency to prognathism, as in some of the Celts. The profile
is often very fine; the carriage is remarkably upright. Neither markedly
brachycephalous nor dolichocephalous, the skull has yet certain
peculiarities. In the conjunction of the whole physical qualities, says
Collignon, there is a Basque type, differing from all those he has studied
in Europe and northern Africa. There are differences of type among
themselves, yet, when they emigrate to South America, French and Spanish
Basques are known simply as Basques, distinct from all other races.

On the origin of the Basques, the chief theories are:--(1) that they are
descended from the tribes whom the Greeks and Latins called Iberi; (2) that
they belong to some of the fairer Berber tribes ("Eurafrican," Herve) and
through the ancient Libyans, from a people depicted on the Egyptian
monuments; (3) the Atlantic theory, that they belong to a lost Atlantic
continent, whose inhabitants were represented by the Guanches of the Canary
Islands, and by a fair race on the western coast of Africa; (4) that they
are an indigenous race, who have never had any greater extension than their
present quarters.

The remains of prehistoric races hitherto discovered in Spain throw little
light on the subject, but some skulls found in southeastern Spain in the
age of metal resemble the Basque skulls of Zaraus.

The megalithic remains, the dolmens, menhirs, cromlechs and stone circles
are said to resemble more closely those of northern Africa than the larger
remains of Brittany and of the British Isles. Aristotle tells us that the
Iberi fixed obelisks round the tomb of each warrior in number equal to the
enemies he h