48 THE HUMAN SPECIES 



scanty remains discovered in the South of France and the 

 North of Italy. In the Mas d'Azil cave, Piette found two skele- 

 tons, the flesh of which had been removed with stone implements, 

 and the bones coloured red with oxide of iron. In the " Barma 

 grande," the fifth Grotto of Mentone, lay three skeletons, also 

 coloured red (a full-grown man, a young woman, and a youth) ; 

 the skull formation is dolichocephalous, and similar to that of 

 the Cro-Magnon race. We still need a detailed anatomical 

 description of these skeletons which, judging from the system 

 of burial, all belong to the same race. 



We have now only to consider the later transitionary 

 period between palaeolithic and neolithic, traces of which have 

 been found chiefly in Italy, France and Denmark ; they occur 

 also in Portugal, Belgium, England, Poland, Finland, in the 

 Ural Mountains, and even in Palestine. This stratum (in 

 France, Campignien ; in Denmark, Kjokkenmoddingen) has 

 been named Mesolithic from the simultaneous occurrence of 

 palaeolithic and neolithic characters therein. The chief meso- 

 lithic characters are : fossil remains of animals, wild and domestic ; 

 barbed arrow-heads of flint with handles ; polished stone axes, 

 and potsherds. The occurrence of palaeolithic together with 

 neolithic characters is most strikingly illustrated in the North- 

 east and South-east of Italy, where the discoveries show a 

 mingling of the two such as can only have been caused by the 

 irresistible advance of a new culture. " Perhaps," says Homes, 1 

 " the native element, pushed ever backward as the superior cul- 

 ture advanced, retreated from the West to the East of Europe, 

 and is responsible for the contents of the ' kitchen middens/ 

 being acquainted with the art of pottery but ignorant of agri- 

 culture and cattle-rearing." Probably the dog was their sole 

 domestic animal. 



Karl Penka is quite clear as to \vhat race mesolithic men 

 belonged. He believes them to be the descendants of the 

 dolichocephalous, palaeolithic race who on the approach of the 

 Cro-Magnon race followed in the track of the retreating rein- 

 deer and became the progenitors of the fair-haired, blue-eyed 

 Aryans, a theory supported by no proof whatever, there being 

 even no remains of the supposed reindeer forthcoming. 



1 Homes, Der dilnv. Mensch, etc.. p. 92. 



