The older “Aryan” theory assumed the migration into Europe of one dominant Asiatic race of civilized conquerors, to whose blood and influence all modern culture was due.  To this “white” race Semitic Asia, a large part of black Africa, and all Europe was supposed to belong.  This “Aryan” theory has been practically abandoned in the light of recent research, and it seems probable now that from the primitive Negroid stock evolved in Asia the Semites either by local variation or intermingling with other stocks; later there developed the Mediterranean race, with Negroid characteristics, and the modern Negroes.  The blue-eyed, light-haired Germanic people may have arisen as a modern variation of the mixed peoples produced by the mingling of Asiatic and African elements.  The last word on this development has not yet been said, and there is still much to learn and explain; but it is certainly proved to-day beyond doubt that the so-called Hamites of Africa, the brown and black curly and frizzly-haired inhabitants of North and East Africa, are not “white” men if we draw the line between white and black in any logical way.

The primitive Negroid race of men developed in Asia wandered eastward as well as westward.  They entered on the one hand Burmah and the South Sea Islands, and on the other hand they came through Mesopotamia and gave curly hair and a Negroid type to Jew, Syrian, and Assyrian.  Ancient statues of Indian divinities show the Negro type with black face and close-curled hair, and early Babylonian culture was Negroid.  In Arabia the Negroes may have divided, and one stream perhaps wandered into Europe by way of Syria.  Traces of these Negroes are manifest not only in skeletons, but in the brunette type of all South Europe.  The other branch proceeded to Egypt and tropical Africa.  Another, but perhaps less probable, theory is that ancient Negroes may have entered Africa from Europe, since the most ancient skulls of Algeria are Negroid.

The primitive African was not an extreme type.  One may judge from modern pygmy and Bushmen that his color was reddish or yellow, and his skull was sometimes round like the Mongolian.  He entered Africa not less than fifty thousand years ago and settled eventually in the broad region between Lake Chad and the Great Lakes and remained there long stretches of years.

After a lapse of perhaps thirty thousand years there entered Africa a further migration of Asiatic people, Negroid in many characteristics, but lighter and straighter haired than the primitive Negroes.  From this Mediterranean race was developed the modern inhabitants of the shores of the Mediterranean in Europe, Asia, and Africa and, by mingling with the primitive Negroes, the ancient Egyptians and modern Negroid races of Africa.

As we near historic times the migrations of men became more frequent from Asia and from Europe, and in Africa came movements and minglings which give to the whole of Africa a distinct mulatto character.  The primitive Negro stock was “mulatto” in the sense of being not widely differentiated from the dark, original Australoid stock.  As the earlier yellow Negro developed in the African tropics to the bigger, blacker type, he was continually mingling his blood with similar types developed in temperate climes to sallower color and straighter hair.