ETHNOLOGY. 339 



Y. — The race. 



In concluding the study of this interesting people we will now deter- 

 mine the race to which they belong. The human bones thus far col- 

 lected are, unfortunately, not sufficiently numerous to satisfy entirely 

 our curiosity. Still, they suffice to prove that their race was very differ- 

 ent from those which succeeded it, and that the learned anthropologist 

 Retzius and his disciples were mistaken in supposing that all the popu- 

 lations of Southern Europe, before the comparatively recent period of 

 the Indo-European migrations, belonged to the type of the short heads, or 

 hrachycephaJes. 



]\L Elie JMass^nat discovered a few months ago, at Lower Laugerie, the 

 skeleton of a man who appeared to have been killed by an accidental 

 fall of earth. But the anatomical description of this valuable specimen 

 has not yet been published, which I especially regret, since it is the sole 

 representative of the troglodytes of the latest period. The skulls and 

 bones in the annexed drawings belong to a very much more ancient 

 date. They came from the ancient sepnlcher of Cromagnon, of which M. 

 Louis Lartet, worthy sou of an illustrious father, has determined, with 

 great accuracy, the geological, paleontological, and archaeological char- 

 acteristics. This burial-place contained the remains of at least five indi- 

 viduals ; but only three skulls, two masculine, one feminine, were suffi- 

 ciently preserved for examination. One of the men was apparently 

 very old ; the other was an adult, as was also the woman. Near them 

 was a young child. 



They were superior in stature to ourselves. The length of the femur 

 of the old man indicates a height of five feet nine inches, while the size 

 of the bones, the extent and roughness of the surfaces of muscular in- 

 sertion, and the extraordinary development of the maxillary bone, in 

 which are inserted the masticatory muscles, manifest a strong constitu- 

 tion. 



The tibias, instead of being triangular and prismatic like ours, are 

 flattened like those of a gorilla. (See Fig. 24.) The upper part of the 

 cubitus is very large and curved, and has a very small sigmoidal cavity, 

 which characteristics recall the cubitus of the gorilla. But the con- 

 foination of the femur differs radically from that of the apes. With the 

 anthropomorphous apes the body of the femur is flattened, is much 

 wider than it is thick, and has not upon its posterior surfaces the longi- 

 tudinal crease which in man is called the sharp line. In existing races 

 the thickuess of the body of the femur is, in general, greater than its 

 width, but the difference is slight. In the specimens of Cromagnon the 

 femur is much thicker than wide. The sharp line, enormously devel- 

 oped, is no longer a simple ridge, but a thick and prominent osseus col- 

 umn, which greatly increases the strength of the bone and the extent 

 of the muscular insertions. In this respect the people of Cromagnon 

 difiered much more from the simian type than the present races. 



The skeletons of these robust troglodytes bear traces of the violence 

 of their manners ; in the lower extremity of one of the femurs of the old 



