Gobineau (1816-1882), Theodor Poesche (1825-1899), Houston
Chamberlain (1855-1927), Paul Broca (1824-1880), Karl Penka (1847-
1912), and Hans Günther (1891-1968) - led to the portrayal of the
Proto-Indo-Europeans as blond and tall, with blue eyes
and dolichocephalic skulls.[103][104] Modern scholars reject those views
and remind that the idea of a Vedic opposition
between ārya and dāsa underlying a racial division remains
problematic, since "most of the [Vedic] passages may not refer to dark
or light skinned people, but dark and light worlds".[105]
Theories of racial supremacy
Arthur de Gobineau (1816-1882)Arthur de Gobineau, the author of the influential Essay on the
Inequality of the Human Races (1853), viewed the white or Aryan race
as the only civilized one, and conceived cultural
decline and miscegenation as intimately intertwined. According to him,
northern Europeans had migrated across the world and founded the
major civilizations, before being diluted through racial mixing with
indigenous populations described as racially inferior, leading to the
progressive decay of the ancient Aryan civilizations.[106] In
1878, German American anthropologist Theodor Poesche published a