CRO-MAGNON SKULLS AND BONES. 103 



the thickness, we find, for the two largest of these modern femurs, the products 1102 and 1085 ; whilst for 

 the old femurs we have the product 1248, greater than the others by 13 and 15 per cent. 



The femurs from Cro-Magnon, broader than all the human femurs with which I have compared them, 

 approach in this character the femurs of the anthropomorphous Apes. The femur of the Chimpanzee in the 

 Orfila Museum is 34 millims. broad ; and that of the Gorilla in the same Museum is 42 millims. In other 

 respects, however, the femurs from Cro-Magnon differ essentially from those of the great Apes, since that of 

 the Chimpanzee is only 27 millims. thick, and that of the Gorilla is 31 millims. The femurs of Apes, then, 

 are broader than thick ; whilst those from Cro-Magnon are much thicker than broad. The differences of 

 length are, of course, greater still ; for, as is well known, the thigh-bones of the anthropomorphic Apes are, 

 absolutely and relatively, much shorter than those of Man. 



The most striking character of the femurs from Cro-Magnon is furnished by the linea aspera, which is 

 here unusually broad and thick*. The lines of muscular insertion are more strongly pronounced than I 

 have ever seen them. In the anthropomorphous Apes the linea aspera is always much less prominent than 

 in Man ; indeed it is sometimes wanting in them ; the conformation, therefore, of the femurs from Cro- 

 Magnon is quite opposed to that of Simian femurs. 



c. The Tibias. These indeed present in a higher degree the shape of a straight sabre, due to transverse 

 flattening, and characterizing the tibias of the great Apes. This recognized feature, which we observed 

 for the first time, in May 1864, in the tibias from the Dolmen of Chamant (Oise) and afterwards in 

 those from the Dolmen of Maintenon (Eure-et-Loire), occurs also in many tibias of the Polished-Stone 

 Period both in France and elsewhere. Recently M. E. Bertrand, student of Chaptal College, has been 

 fortunate enough to find in the -Quaternary Drift at Clichy the remains of a Man, whose skull resembles 

 in some respects those from Cro-Magnon, and whose tibia is remarkable for its flatness or sharp-shin 

 form. So also Mr. Busk, by his researches at Gibraltar in 1863, has shown that the old tibias found in 

 the caves there were all platycnemicf- This form, then, so different from that of the leg-bones of 

 existing Men, ought to be regarded as belonging to most of the prehistoric races of Men; I do not 

 say of all, since M. Dupont has proved that in several of the Belgian Caves the human tibias of the 

 Reindeer Period are prismatic and triangular like ours. This is a proof of the diversity of the so-called 

 Autochthonic races of Europe, already referred to (page 98). 



Among the many tibias, however, in which we have as yet studied the platycnemic condition!, there are 

 none which have exhibited it to the same degree as the tibias from Cro-Magnon none presenting so 

 striking a contrast of the antero-posterior and transverse diameters, suggesting a resemblance to the Simian 

 form at first sight. The great size also of these tibias drew attention to the strangeness of their shape ; for 

 when seen in profile they show a much greater fore-and-aft thickness than the largest modern tibias, but 

 seen in front they do not appear broader than ordinary tibias. Thus in the Old Man's tibia, of which we 

 have the shaft only, we find the antero-posterior diameter to be 54 millims. at the upper part of the 



* The same " carinate " form is seen in three femurs obtained by Mr. Busk from the Caves of Gibraltar. 

 These bones were exhibited to the Congress of Prehistoric Archaeology at Norwich (in August 1868) 

 together with casts of those from Cro-Magnon ; and their very great similarity was evident to all. 



t We saw them at the Congress of Prehistoric Archaeology at Norwich in August 1868, where these 

 specimens were carefully compared. 



+ I have met with this transverse flatness in the tibias of many Negroes, but less pronounced than in 

 prehistoric tibias. This character is strongly marked in the great Negro skeleton of the Orfila Museum ; 

 other Negro tibias, however, are triangular. 



Q 



