456 



NA TURE 



[ATarch 7, 1901 



We have also a cast of the calvaria of one of this race found iu 

 county Sligo. Another skull of the same type was discovered 

 at Bury St. Edmunds, with the remains of extinct animals and 

 Mousterian flint weapons. 



The anterior surface of the lower jaw among the existing races 

 of Europe projects to form the chin. Among apes the reverse is 

 the case, for the anterior surface of their mandibles recede. The 

 Marlarnaud and the Naulette mandibles, of which we have casts, 

 are evidently those of human beings ; they were found in geolo- 

 gical formations (which also contained the bones of extinct 

 species of animals and palaeolithic flint weapons). These bones 

 are distinctly ape-like in character, having receding anterior 

 surfaces, and also the sockets of all the molars are equal in size. 

 The bones of the legs of these pre-glacial or intra-glacial inhabi- 

 tants of Europe are of ape-like form, and together with the bones 

 of their arms prove that they^were a short, powerful race of beings 

 whose average stature did not exceed five feet. They are known 

 as the Neanderthal group of men. 



When the glaciers which had extended over the greater part 

 of Europe moved northward, the reindeer passed away with 

 them from our part of the continent. These animals, which 

 could easily be captured by man, had roamed in vast herds over 

 the surface of the country, and had probably afforded the 

 human inhabitants of that period living in western Europe an 

 ample supply of food. The climate of our part of the world at 

 the termination of the glacial period became such as we now 

 experience. Britain was separated from France by sea, and fine 

 rivers, containing numerous fish, filled the valleys of our land ; 

 the red deer, wild horse and various fleet-footed animals 

 abounded in the splendid forests which overspread the country. 

 But these animals and the fish of our lakes and rivers were not 

 easily captured, and the human inhabitants of western Europe 

 were therefore compelled to exert their intellectual capacities to 

 an extent not heretofore necessary in order to supply themselves 

 with food and with the skins of animals for clothing. Man was 

 able to overcome the difiiculties he had to face, possessing an 

 innate power by means of which (as already explained) his 

 brain was able to develop and so meet the increased demand 

 made upon it in the struggle for existence. That such was the 

 case we judge from the discovery, in geological formations of the 

 post-glacial period, of the skulls of men having the same physical 

 type as those of the strictly palaeolithic epoch of western 

 Europe, but with increased brain capacity. These post-glacial 

 human skulls indicate, in my opinion, a gradual transition in 

 form from the ape-like characters of the previous period to a 

 higher standard and distinctly greater brain capacity in the 

 frontal region ; this most important question, however, requires 

 further study. With this improvement in the form ot the 

 human skull, the flint, stone, bone and horn instruments made 

 by the post-glacial inhabitants of western Europe become more 

 highly finished, indicating the possession of increasing intellectual 

 power on the part of those who made them. 



The Engis skull, of which we have a cast, presented to this 

 college by Sir Charles Lyell, is a well-known example of a 

 human cranium of the early neolithic or post-glacial period. 

 Huxley, in his description of this skull, observes •' "It takes us, 

 at least, to the further side of the biological limit which separ- 

 ates the present geological epoch from that which preceded it," 

 that is, from palaeolithic times. The Borris and Egisheim 

 skulls probably belong to this period, their characters being 

 similar to those of the Tilbury cranium described by Sir Richard 

 Owen, of which we have casts in our museum. These and 

 various other skulls found in geological formations of the time 

 referred to are all of the same type, and lead us to believe that 

 the inhabitants of Europe consisted, in the early neolithic 

 period, of only one race, the descendants of the human beings 

 who inhabited our part of the world during the previous or early 

 palaeolithic epoch. They had long (dolichocephalic) skulls, with 

 slightly projecting supraorbital ridges, well-formed noses, and a 

 fairly-developed frontal region as compared with the far more 

 ancient Java and Neanderthal crania. Their lower jaws and the 

 bones of their legs were less simian in character than those of 

 their remote progenitors ; they were a small race of beings. We 

 find no metal weapons or instruments with their remains, and 

 we therefore conclude that they were ignorant of the use either 

 of bronze or of iron, nor do they seem to have possessed 

 domestic animals or to have had any knowledge of agriculture. 

 This race of primitive inhabitants of western Europe are best 

 known as the Iberians, and we may conveniently employ this 

 term so long as it is understood to designate the Africo-European 



NO. 1636, VOL. 63] 



stock who were, so far as we know, the only human inhabitants 

 of Europe in the later palaeolithic times. It should be clearly 

 understood that no bond-fide human remains belonging to the 

 early palaeolithic period have hitherto been discovered in 

 western Europe which were not of the same type as those above 

 described. 



As we pass from the early to the mid-neolithic epoch, we 

 come upon the remains of a race of men who, as regards 

 their physical character and state of civilisation, essentially 

 differ from the people aboVe referred to. The stone imple- 

 ments found with their skeletons are beautifully formed, many 

 of them being highly polished and having sharp cutting edges. 

 A few of the purest bronze axe-heads have been discovered 

 with these remains, and also the bones of domestic animals 

 belonging to species indigenous to Asia but foreign to the 

 palaeolithic fauna of Europe. Lastly, we have evidence that 

 these people were acquainted with agriculture and with the 

 manufacture of sun-dried pottery. They paid great respect to 

 their dead chiefs, burying their bodies in natural caves or in 

 tombs formed of huge flag stones placed edgeways side by side 

 with similar stones laid on the upright ones to form the roof of 

 the building. These structures, the well-known long dolmens, 

 have been found, built on precisely the same plan, in Ireland, 

 England, the greater part of Europe, the west of Asia, India, 

 Arabia and northern Africa. They were not only sepulchres 

 for the dead, but many of them also contained an altar, a place 

 of mourning and of offering, where intercession was made to 

 the spirits of departed chiefs by their relations and tribesmen. 

 The Rodmarton long dolmen or temple tomb (near Cirencester) 

 affords us a good example of one of these structures ; it is 180 

 feet in length and 70 feet broad. We have in our museum a 

 fine human skull which was found in this dolmen, with some 

 well-polished stone implements. If we compare the skull with 

 that of palaeolithic man or with the skulls of the early neolithic 

 human inhabitants of western Europe, we are immediately 

 struck by the marked difference that exists between them and 

 the Rodmarton skull. Dr. Thurman's unique collection of 

 crania may be seen in the Anatomical Museum, Cambridge ; 

 these crania, for the most part, were unearthed by himself from 

 various English long dolmens and barrows, and they resemble 

 in form, although they are of a higher type than, the skulls 

 found in the caves of Cro-Magnon and Mentone ; they are 

 identical in character with skulls found in the long dolmens of 

 France and other countries of Europe. The cranial index, 

 capacity, and other features of the bones of these skulls lead us 

 to assign them all to one and the same race, of which the Cro- 

 Magnon are probably some of the very earliest specimens as yet 

 discovered in western Europe. The three Cro-Magnon and 

 three Mentone skeletons were those of people some six feet four 

 inches and upwards in stature, so that a race of giants in far 

 distant times was no myth. Their cranial capacity was above 

 that of average Europeans of the present day. From their 

 physical conformation and from the remains -of the animals 

 found buried with them, which are of Asiatic species, and from 

 other evidence, we are led to the conclusion that the Cro- 

 Magnon race represents the advance guard of the proto-Aryan 

 human family, of which the Rodmarton and many other long 

 dolmen skulls show a more advanced type. These people in 

 far distant ages migrated from the east into western Europe, and 

 from thence spread into our islands ; southwards they passed 

 into India, Persia and Arabia, Asia Minor and northern Africa. 

 Over this vast area and far away in eastern Asia we find their 

 remains, with flint and stone implements of the early neolithic 

 type, buried in long dolmens or barrows. The roots of many of 

 the words used by this ancient people exist in most of the 

 languages now spoken in Europe, and their religious sentiments, 

 myths, and, above all, their racial, mental and physical char- 

 acters, as portrayed in the Ri,-Veda and on the ancient 

 monuments of Egypt, are pronounced features in the existing 

 Teutonic and Anglo-Saxon people. From the form of the 

 crania found in many of these long dolmens we know that this 

 tall, fair, handsome, long-skulled race intermarried with the pre- 

 existing short dark Iberian inhabitants of Europe. The fair tall 

 race probably did not at any time, unless in the north of Europe, 

 form a large proportion of the population ; they were a domina- 

 ting, fighting and priestly caste who compelled the primitive 

 small, dark (Iberian) inhabitants of western Europe to work as 

 their slaves. 



During the neolithic era, while the descendants of tb 

 proto-Aryan stock were slowly feeling their way from tho 



