Hebrew invaders".[23] Joshua drove them out of Hebron,[24] in the neighbourhood of which Abraham had purchased a burial cave from Ephron, the Hittite.[25] Apparently a system of land laws prevailed in Palestine at this early period.  It is of special interest for us to note that in Abraham’s day and afterwards, the landed proprietors in the country of the Rephaim were identified with the aliens from Asia Minor—­the tall variety in the Hittite confederacy.

Little doubt need remain that the Arabians during their sojourn in Palestine and Syria met with distinctive types, and if not with pure Armenoids, at any rate with peoples having Armenoid traits.  The consequent multiplication of tribes, and the gradual pressure exercised by the constant stream of immigrants from Arabia and Asia Minor, must have kept this part of Western Asia in a constant state of unrest.  Fresh migrations of the surplus stock were evidently propelled towards Egypt in one direction, and the valleys of the Tigris and Euphrates in another.  The Semites of Akkad were probably the conquerors of the more highly civilized Sumerians, who must have previously occupied that area.  It is possible that they owed their success to the possession of superior weapons.  Professor Elliot Smith suggests in this connection that the Arabians had become familiar with the use of copper as a result of contact with the Egyptians in Sinai.  There is no evidence, however, that the Sumerians were attacked before they had begun to make metal weapons.  It is more probable that the invading nomads had superior military organization and considerable experience in waging war against detached tribal units.  They may have also found some of the northern Sumerian city states at war with one another and taken advantage of their unpreparedness to resist a common enemy.  The rough Dorians who overran Greece and the fierce Goths who shattered the power of Rome were similarly in a lower state of civilization than the peoples whom they subdued.

The Sumerians, however, ultimately achieved an intellectual conquest of their conquerors.  Although the leaders of invasion may have formed military aristocracies in the cities which they occupied, it was necessary for the great majority of the nomads to engage their activities in new directions after settlement.  The Semitic Akkadians, therefore, adopted Sumerian habits of life which were best suited for the needs of the country, and they consequently came under the spell of Sumerian modes of thought.  This is shown by the fact that the native speech of ancient Sumer continued long after the dawn of history to be the language of Babylonian religion and culture, like Latin in Europe during the Middle Ages.  For centuries the mingling peoples must have been bilingual, as are many of the inhabitants of Ireland, Wales, and the Scottish Highlands in the present age, but ultimately the language of the Semites became the prevailing speech in Sumer and Akkad.  This change was the direct