250 SIR J. W, DAWSON^ C.M.Q., F.E.S., ETC., ON SPECIMENS 



On this hypothesis one may regard the Guanches as a 

 comparatively unmixed race, but in the Gran Canarian 

 variety approaching more nearly to the more delicate type 

 of the Palanthropic age, wliile of the latter the types of 

 Laugerie-basse and Truchere approach nearest to the 

 Guanche and Iberian forms. On the whole, however, the 

 Guanches cannot be identified on physical grounds Avith the 

 Cro-Magnon or other Palanthropic races, and their nearest 

 affinities would seem to be with the Neanthropic or "Neo- 

 lithic " peoples of Western Europe and with the modern 

 Berbers and Basques. 



I may add here that the study of many skulls and 

 skeletons leads me to the conclusion which I have elsewhere 

 maintained that the bones of men known as those of 

 Canstadt, Neanderthal, Spy, Cro-Magnon, Laugerie-basse, 

 and Mentone,* which were contemporary in Western Europe 

 with a land fauna now in large part extinct either wholly or 

 locally, and with geographical conditions which have passed 

 away, are distinguishable by well-marked physical characters 

 from any modern races, including the Guanches ; and that 

 the characteristics of these extinct tribes appear only 

 occasionally by atavism, or locally and partially in individual 

 cases, especially in some of the more rude races of modern 

 men. 



It thus appears that our Guanches are racially, as they 

 are geographically, coiniected with the older peoples of the 

 western Mediterranean area, and with these as they existed 

 in the post-diluvian period, after the continents had attained 

 to their present forms. It remains, however, to inquire to 

 what extent, the Guanches may approach to the aboriginal 

 peoples of Eastern America. Here there can be no question 

 that their crania distinctly resemble those of the Huron and 

 Algonquin peoples. This can easily be seen by com- 

 parison of the Guanche skulls in our collection with those 

 representing American tribes of these races, and it appears 

 also from the extensive series of measurements published by 

 the late Sir Daniel Wilson.t The index of thirty-nine Huron 

 skulls as given by him is '744, and that of thirty-two 



* M. Louis Jullieii, who has made some excavations at Mentone, has 

 kindly communicated to me photographs of a skull found by him in the 

 cave of Bamio Grande. Its measurements are 19'2 cm. by 14'1 cm., or 

 very near to those of the Laugerie-basse skull, but it is more prognathous. 



t Prehistoric Ilan, chap. xx. 



