ANTHROPOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF PARIS. 387 



peteiit authorities. Thus, MM. Bertrand .in<l Loijnay Lave procnrcd for us a 

 whole series of skulls and bones taken by themselves from the dolmen of Argen- 

 tcuil, and M. de .Sanlcy has ij-iven us several skulls derived from the tumuli 

 of Meloisey, (cote d'or,) and wliich date from the first age of iron. The Society 

 has also received, thanks to the intervention of several of its members who formed 

 part of the commission of the museum of St. Germain — thanks especially to JI. 

 Bertrand, director of that museum — a tine series of skulls exhumed from the 

 Gaulish cemetery of Saint Etienne-au-Templcj near Chalons-sur-iMarne. Sun- 

 dry communications of M. Bonjou and M. Leguay have brouglit to our knowledge 

 the results of tlie excavations made at Villancuve-Saint-Georges, in a station of 

 the age of polished stone. M. Roujou has superadded the deseripticm of a num- 

 ber of specimens of cut silex found in the dihivium of tlie environs of Paris, and 

 of several hearths engaged in the loess near Cliois^'-le-Roi. M. Mauricet has 

 presented to us bones extracted from the dolmen of Moustoir-Carnac, (Mor- 

 bihan,) and the fac-simile of two human feet delineated on one of the lateral 

 stones of the dolmen of Mout-en-Arzon. If we add to these the fine head from 

 Quiberon, sent by M. de Closmadeuc, (of Vannes,) and the cut silex which Mif. 

 Hamy and Sauvage have brouglit from Cliatillon, near Boulogne-sur-Mer, we shall 

 still be far from having enumerated all the arclupological facts which relate to the 

 .anthropologv of our country. But I should hardly 1)0 pardoned for quitting this 

 subject without mentioning in a particular mantier the numerous ctmnuunications 

 of M. de Mortillet on the prehistoric epochs. The learned editor of the Mafe- 

 riaux jwur VHistoire Posilice cf I'hilosophique de VHoinmc leaves us not in igno- 

 rance of any of the important facts \\ Inch throng from all quarters to his journal, 

 and if we are ever at a loss for information we are sure of finding it with him. 



Tlie greater part of the archaeological documents of wliich I have just spoken 

 relate to the epoch of polished stone, which preceded the age of bronze; tliat is 

 to say, the inange.ration of tlie Indo-European era, Tlie ages which afterwards 

 elapsed till the advent of written history, and which are designated by the name 

 of the Celtic ejioch, are accessible by several means of investigation. Anthro- 

 pology relies not here solely on arcliaMtlogy ; it derives light from the torch of 

 linguistics, and even from tlu^ first glimmerings c)f history. A note of ]M. Henri 

 Martin on the Cimmerian niigratifnis, a leiirned memoir of M. Georges on the 

 origin of the Celts, have adiled new facts to those which found a place, three 

 years ago, in the discussions of the society on the original sources of the Euro- 

 pean populations. On the other hand, our veneralde foreign associate, jM. d'Oma- 

 lius d'lialloy, whose green old age sets at naught the ravages of time, has main- 

 tained, in a remarkable* and highly applauded work, the ()bjections which he had 

 previously raised against the prevailing doctrine; and it is impossible not to 

 recognize that, if linguistics be in a position to demonstrate the Asiatic origin of 

 the Aryan languages, anthropological observatitm does not permit us to consider 

 all the poi)ulation,s which to-day speak those languages as descendants in a direct 

 line of one and the same people. Tlie diversity of types of the modern Indo- 

 Europeans can only be explained by the sunuvorship of autochthonous populations, 

 which, already differing at the epoch of the Asiatic invasion, have been crossed 

 with tln'ir conquerors, and have maintained the dissimilarity of races even where 

 the relationship of idinms seemed to indicate a common origin. 



The multitude of the rnces of prehistoric Europe, which forces itself on the 

 mind as the necessary ex[)lanation of the actual .state of things, results directly 

 and iucontestably from the study of the skulls of the age of stone. In the dis- 

 ^,ussion whi(;Ii has been raised on the craniological type of the men of that epoch, 

 j.icts ai)|)arently contradictory and yet ])erl'ectly reconcilable have been laid before 

 the Society. <}ii the one hand, it has been estfiblislied that a very great majority 

 of the skulls of the (lolniens arc dolichocephalous, contrary to th<^ f>j)inion of 

 lictzins. This is true, not only for France but also for Great Britain, and very 

 probabl}'^ even for Sweden, the country of that celebrated naturalist ; for it will 



