SCHAAFFHAUSEN ON THE CRANIA OF THE ANCIENT RACES OF MAN. 167 



also, Ammianus Marcellinus says : " They are frightful from the wild- 

 ness of their eyes." Bat the ancient Britons and Irish, the Belgians, 

 Fins, and Scythians are described as of far more savage aspect. According 

 to Strabo, the Irish were voracious cannibals, and considered it praise- 

 worthy to eat the bodies of their parents ; and they are noticed in simi- 

 lar terms by Diodorus. St. Hieronymus states that, even in Gaul, the 

 Scoti had been seen eating human flesh. Tacitus relates with respect 

 to the Fins, that they live in a state of astonishing savageness, their 

 food being wild herbs, their clothing skins, their arrow-heads made of 

 bone, and that the children and old people had no other protection from 

 the weather than wattled huts. Adam of Bremen relates that, so late 

 as in the eleventh century, the so-termed Jotuni, the most ancient popu- 

 lation of Scandinavia, dwelt in the mountains and forests, clad in the 

 skins of animals, and uttering sounds more like the cries of wild beasts 

 than human speech. Their conquest and extermination are celebrated 

 in the poems of the Skalds.* Isigonus of Nicaea, quoted by Pliny, f 

 says that a Scythian people dwelling ten days' journey northwards from 

 the Dnieper was addicted to cannibalism, drank out of human skulls, 

 and carried the hairy scalps of the slain on their breast. As in the 

 German traditions and tales, many traces of the mode of life of our an- 

 cestors have come down to us from heathen times, so also may the tra- 

 dition respecting cannibalism, which, from Grimm's researches, though it 

 appears as early as Homer in the history of Polyphemus, is also widely 

 diffused in the legends of the Fins, Tartars, and Germans, have originated 

 in the actual remembrance of that abominable practice. J 



The considerations which have led us to compare the Neanderthal 

 cranium with those of the most ancient races are still farther confirmed 



Vesontio, on his march against Ariovistus, reports were spread by the Roman inhabi- 

 tants of the country, and by the Gauls and traders, of the " incredible valour, expertnesa 

 in arms, and gigantic stature of the Germani ;" and that these reports (which were, pro- 

 bably, not altogether unintentionally made) caused a sudden panic, chiefly, however, 

 among the volunteers who had followed him, and the inexperienced soldiers. He seems 

 to have had little difficulty in quelling the commotion, and in removing some of the dread 

 instilled into his troops, by reminding them that the Germani had been often beaten with- 

 out difficulty by the Helvetii. 



* J. C. Prichard, Natural History of Man. 



f Plinii, Sec. Hist. Nat., vii 2. 



% [To these references might be added, perhaps, some lines of Sidonis Apollinaris in 

 describing the Huns, quoted by V. Baer (DieMakrokephalen, &c, p. 36 :) — 



" Gens animis membrisque minax : ita vultibus ipsis 

 Infantum suus horror inest. Consurgit in arcem 

 Massa rotunda caput : geminis sub froute cavernis 

 Visus adest oculis absentibus : arcta cerebri 

 In cameram vix ad refugos lux pervenit orbes, 

 Non tamen et clausos : nam fornix non spatiosa, 

 Magna vident spatia, et majoris luminis usum 

 Perspicua in puteis compensant puncta profundis."] 



