238 THE PYGMY RACES OF MEN 



negritoes and negrillos run from about 4 ft. to less than 

 5ft. The Lapps (of whom there are about 25,000 in 

 Finmark and Lapmark) are a thick-set, round-headed 

 (brachycephalic), dark-yellow race, and have always been 

 credited with powers of witchcraft and magic by their 

 neighbours and by modern sailors. They live in immediate 

 contact with the Finns (both are Mongolian races), who are 

 very tall and have fair hair and blue eyes. Some writers 

 have supposed that the Lapps are the remnants of a small 

 race which was formerly spread over the whole of Europe, 

 and was exterminated or driven out by the larger races. 

 But we have no evidence in favour of this view and strong 

 evidence against it, since we now know the skulls and 

 skeletons of a great number of the prehistoric inhabitants 

 of Europe belonging to the Bronze, to the Neolithic, and 

 to the Palaeolithic periods. None of these skeletons belong 

 to an abnormally small-sized race, though the Bronze-age 

 people were smaller than their predecessors and successors. 

 The cave-dwellers of the " reindeer " epoch of the Palaeo- 

 lithic period were big men, with fine, high skulls, and even 

 the earlier Palaeolithic men of the glacial period, the man 

 of the Neanderthal, the couple from Spy, and the three 

 recently dug up near Perigueux (of whom I have written 

 in another book),* were not diminutive men. It is true 

 they were not tall only about 5 ft. 4 in. in height but 

 they were very powerful and muscular, and totally different 

 physically from the Lapps or from any of the tropical 

 pygmy men. It is a remarkable fact that in one cave at 

 Mentone, on the Riviera, explored by the Prince of Monaco, 

 two skeletons have been found belonging to a shortish, 

 negro-like race (indicated by the form of the skull), and 

 apparently a little later in date than the Neandermen. 

 We must remember that at that remote date there was 

 continuous land connection between Europe and Africa. 



* 'Science from an Easy Chair,' Methuen, 1909. 





