60 THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



race reached to 1550 cubic centimeters or more than 100 cubic centi- 

 meters in excess of tl?e average brain capacity of the men of our day. 



The Cro-Magnons were thus in brain and in stature a truly 

 wonderful people and one is not surprised to learn that they were 

 mighty hunters and had developed an artistic skill and a power and 

 excellence in portrayal that were not surpassed by succeeding races 

 till civilization had well advanced. 



The valley of the Dordogne was the geographic center of this 

 race in palaeolithic times and it is a remarkable coincidence that the 

 same center is the home of the purest representatives of this same 

 race today. The ancient and the modern Cro-Magnons are practi- 

 cally identical in respect to their cranial characters. There has 

 been a falling off in stature. The present people do not reach to the 

 proportions of their palaeolithic ancestors. This need not surprise 

 us for stature is a very variable character in man and subject to 

 relatively rapid changes. As a matter of fact, we find the race 

 decreasing in stature immediately after Aurignacian t'mes. The 

 easy conditions and abundant food supplies of the genial interglacial 

 period, in which the Aurignacian epoch falls, was conducive to great 

 stature and bodily development generally ; whereas the more rigorous 

 conditions of the succeeding cold period, with its more limited food 

 supplies, would naturally tend to produce the contrary effect. 



The cephalic indices of the ancient people varied from seventy 

 to seventy-three per cent. These figures in the living skull would 

 be represented by seventy- two to seventy-five per cent., or two 

 per cent. more. The modern Cro-Magnon ind ces are a little higher 

 than this, seventy-six per cent, being about the average, though 

 many individual skulls fall to the ancient low level. This rise in 

 the average of the cephalic index may be accounted for by 'nter- 

 marriage with the round-headed Alpine stock. Ripley regards the 

 modern Cro-Magnons as the direct descendants of the ancient people 

 of Dordogne, with an unbroken lineage from Aurignacian times 

 downward. If he is correct in this view the Cromagniards of today 

 furnish us with the most striking example of persistence of type and 

 population, extending over tens of thousands of years, that has ever 

 been discovered. This same type of people is found in isolated 

 groups elsewhere in Europe. According to Verneau the Cro-Magnon 

 type was the common one among the extinct Guanches of the Canary 

 Islands. It is said to be found also at Lannion in Brittany, at Landes 

 in France and on the island of Oberon. Virchow has described a 

 group of the same people in the islands of North Holland. 



