In the early Neolithic age the whole area of land between Great Britain and Somaliland was inhabited by a genus of delicately built brunettes, which have been termed by modern scientists the Brown or Mediterranean race. Gradually the sphere of its predominance was encroached upon by Teutons in the north, Nubians in the south; till at length it survived only in a majority on the Mediterranean littoral. Subject to that limitation, it may be classified, speaking of physical characteristics, in four main families, of which the Pelasgians— to borrow a name from Herodotusinhabited Greece, the Archipelago, and the west coast of Asia Minor. That this people, or more accurately this branch, was possessed, before the advent of the Indo-European Hellenes, of a civilization capable of high development and assimilation, is demonstrated in the artistic and domestic achievement of the Minoan era in Crete, for which it must have been mainly responsible.
Additional, though less sophisticated, remains of its culture are to be found in the monuments of the Etruscans, a branch of the Pelasgians migrated to Italy.