The ‘Graverow’ Type

“This is the Graverow type of Ecker, the Hohberg type of His and Rutimeyer, the Swiss anatomists.  In it the head is long, narrow (say from 70 to 76 in. breadth-index), as high or higher than it is broad, with the upper part of the occiput very prominent, the forehead rather high than broad, often dome-shaped, often receding, with prominent brows, the nose long, narrow, and prominent, the cheek-bones narrow and not prominent, the chin well marked, the mouth apt to be prominent in women.  In Germany persons with these characters have almost always light eyes and hair....  This Graverow type is almost exclusively what is found in the burying-places of the fifth, sixth, and seventh centuries, whether of the Alemanni, the Bavarians, the Franks, the Saxons, or the Burgundians.  Schetelig dug out a graveyard in Southern Spain which is attributed to the Visigoths.  Still the same harmonious elliptic form, the same indices, breadth 73, height 74.”

Early German Society

Tacitus in his Germania gives a vivid if condensed picture of Teutonic life in the latter part of the first century: 

“The face of the country, though in some parts varied, presents a cheerless scene, covered with the gloom of forests, or deformed with wide-extended marshes; toward the boundaries of Gaul, moist and swampy; on the side of Noricum and Pannonia, more exposed to the fury of the winds.  Vegetation thrives with sufficient vigour.  The soil produces grain, but is unkind to fruit-trees; well stocked with cattle, but of an under-size, and deprived by nature of the usual growth and ornament of the head.  The pride of a German consists in the number of his flocks and herds; they are his only riches, and in these he places his chief delight.  Gold and silver are withheld from them:  is it by the favour or the wrath of Heaven?  I do not, however, mean to assert that in Germany there are no veins of precious ore; for who has been a miner in these regions?  Certain it is they do not enjoy the possession and use of those metals with our sensibility.  There are, indeed, silver vessels to be seen among them, but they were presents to their chiefs or ambassadors; the Germans regard them in no better light than common earthenware.  It is, however, observable that near the borders of the empire the inhabitants set a value upon gold and silver, finding them subservient to the purposes of commerce.  The Roman coin is known in those parts, and some of our specie is not only current, but in request.  In places more remote the simplicity of ancient manners still prevails:  commutation of property is their only traffic.  Where money passes in the way of barter our old coin is the most acceptable, particularly that which is indented at the edge, or stamped with the impression of a chariot and two horses, called the Serrati and Bigati.  Silver is preferred to gold, not from caprice or fancy, but because the inferior metal is of more expeditious use in the purchase of low-priced commodities.