542 THE GUANCHES. 



ally stauding in tlie cave liouies of those inhabitants of onr j?lobe who 

 lived in the Paleolithic age — that is, the age of the unpolished stone; 

 the age immediately succeeding the most primeval race of which we 

 have any trace at all; a race whose antiquity is measured by the liglit 

 of modern science as coexistent with the last glacial epoch, and which 

 possibly existed even before that period. Nor is this, in the case of the 

 people we wish to describe, mere supposition, for by anthropometrical 

 observation, as well as by craniology (the twin sciences of human meas- 

 urements of bones and skulls), we are brought face to face with the 

 fact that in the slow and eternal evolution of the human race certain 

 structural peculiarities belong to these early races whose remains we 

 find in these islands, which have either been modified to suit an altered 

 environment or have entirely disappeared, as no longer necessary either 

 in the struggle for existence or in the enjoyment of life — the two most 

 potent factors in all the complex processes of evolntion. 



As regards this structural alteration, it may be briefly said that a cer- 

 tain peculiarity in the elbow joint — which doubtless served some purpose 



to our arboreal progenitors, but which in 

 parts of Europe where races have been 

 more rapidly mixed, or wher^ civilization 

 has made more rapid strides, and conse- 

 quently the process of evolution become 

 more determined, has ceased to exist — 

 existed amongthe Guanches, and is still 



Fi"-. 1. . 



'^ found among their descendants to this 



PERFORATED ARM-BONES OF THE GUANCHES. ^ 



day in a proportion far exceeding that 

 in any other known race. In England, in our days, this peculiarity is 

 practically extinct — in some parts of the world it reaches 2 per cent of 

 the population — but here, amongthe Guanches, it has been ascertained 

 by actual observation to reach to the astonishing number of 20 per cent, 

 showing a race who have been so little intermixed and so direct in descent 

 from the Stone age as it would be difficult to find except in the most 

 isolated parts of the world, among races such as the Aztecs, or the inhab- 

 itants of some of the Pacific Ocean islands, or among the natives of Aus- 

 tralia. This is one of the peculiar interests of the Guanche race. 



This sketch of the arm bones shows the peculiar bone structure 

 referred to above. It should be observed that the ordinary arm bone 

 has no hole in it at all. (Fig. 1.) 



Again, the craniology of these people has been identified by Dr. J. 

 Cleasby Taylor, the resident English physician at Las Palmas, as prov- 

 ing their Iberian descent, belonging as they did to the Dolichocephalic 

 branch of the human race. So that, whether the Guanches owe their 

 origin to some primordial race of men coexistent with the earliest genesis 

 of man, or whether they brought these strongly marked structural char- 

 acteristics from IJerber or other mainland races, does not affect the 

 question of their antiquity. 



