528 



NA TURE 



[October i, 1896 



attractive aspects. The ancient Greek might not have accepted 

 kinship even with "the blameless Ethiopian," but those of- us 

 who may happen to combine a British origin with a 

 Mediterranean complexion may derive a certain ancestral pride 

 from remote consanguinity with Pharaoh. They may even be 

 willing to admit that "the Ethiopian" in the course of his 

 migrations has done much to "change his skin." 



In part, at least, the new theory is little more than a re-state- 

 ment of an ethnographic grouping that commands a general 

 consensus of opinion. From Thurnam's time onwards we have 

 been accustomed to regard the dolichocephalic type found in 

 the early Long Barrows, and what seem to have been the later 

 survivals of the same stock in our islands, as fitting on to the 

 Iberian element in South-western Europe. The extensive new 

 materials accumulated by Dr. Garson have only served to 

 corroborate these views, while further researches have shown 

 that the characteristic features of the skeletons found in the 

 Ligurian caves, at Cro Magnon and elsewhere in France, are 

 common to those of a large part of Italy, Sicily, and Sardinia, 

 and extend not only to the Iberic group, but to the Guanche 

 interments of the Canary Islands. 



The newly correlated data unquestionably extend the field of 

 comparison ; but the theories as to the original home of this 

 "Mediterranean Race" and the course of its diffusion may be 

 thought to be still somewhat lacking in documentary evidence. 

 They remind us rather too closely of the old "Aryan" 

 hypothesis, in which we were almost instructed as to the halting 

 places of the different detachments as they passed on their way 

 from their Central Asian cradle to rearrange themselves with 

 military precision, and exactly in the order of their relationship, 

 in their distant European homes. The existing geological 

 conditions are made the basis of this migratory expansion from 

 Ethiopia to Ireland ; parallel streams move through North 

 Africa and from Anatolia to Southern Europe. One cardinal 

 fact has certainly not received attention, and that is, that the 

 existing evidence of this Mediterranean type dates much further 

 back on European soil than even in ancient Egypt. 



Prof. Sergi himself has recognised the extraordinary continuity 

 of the cranial type of the Ligurian caves among the modern 

 population of that coast. 



But this continuity involves an extreme antiquity for the 

 settlement of the "Mediterranean Race" in North-western 

 Italy and Southern France. The cave interments, such as those 

 of the Finalcse, carry back the type well into Neolithic times. 

 But the skeletons of the Baousse Rousse caves, between 

 Mentone and Ventimiglia, which reproduce the same character- 

 istic forms, take us back far behind any .stage of culture to which 

 the name of Neolithic can be properly applied. 



The importance of this series of interments is so unique, and 

 the fulness of the evidence so far surpasses any other records 

 immediately associated with the earliest remains of man, that 

 even in this brief survey they seem to demand more than a 

 passing notice. 



So much, at least, must be admitted on all hands : an earlier 

 stage of culture is exhibited in these deposits than that which has 

 hitherto been regarded as the minimum equipment of the men of 

 the later Stone Age. The complete absence of pottery, of 

 polished implements, of domesticated animals — all the more 

 striking from the absolute contrast presented by the rich 

 Neolithic cave burials a little further up the same coast — how 

 is it to be explained ? The long flint knives, the bone and 

 shell ornaments, might, indeed, find partial ])arallels among 

 Neolithic remains ; but does not, after all, the balance of com- 

 parison incline to that more ancient group belonging to the 

 " Reindeer Period" in the South of France, as illustrated by the 

 caves of La Madeleine, Les Eyzies and .Solutre ? 



It is true that, in an account of the interments found in 1892 

 in the Barma Grande Cave, given by me to the Anthropological 

 Institute, I was myself so prepossessed by the still dominant 

 doctrine that the usage of burial was unknown to Paleolithic 

 man, and so overpowered by the vision of the yawning hiatus 

 between him and his Neolithic successor, that I failed to realise 

 the full import of the evidence. On that occasion I took refuge 

 in the suggestion that we had here to deal with an earlier 

 Neolithic stratum than any hitherto recorded. "Neolithic," 

 that is, without the Neolithic. 



But the accumulation of fresh data, and especially the critical 

 observations of M. d'Acy and Prof. Issel, have convinced me 

 that this intermediate position is untenable. From the great 

 depth below the original surface, of wh.at in all cases seem to 



NO. 1405, VOL. 54] 



have been homogeneous quaternary deposits, at which the human 

 remains were found, it is necessary to suppose, if the interments 

 took place at a later period, that pits in many cases from 30 to 

 40 feet deep must have been excavated in the cave earth. But 

 nothing of the kind has been detected, nor any intrusion of 

 extraneous materials. On the other hand, the gnawed or 

 defective condition of the extremities in several cases points 

 clearly to superficial and imperfect interment of the body; and 

 in one case parts of the same core from whicli flints found with 

 the skeleton had been chipped were found some metres distant 

 on the same Hoor level. Are we, then, to imagine that another 

 pit was expressly dug to bury these ? 



In the case of a more recently discovered and as yet unpidj- 

 lished interment, at the excavation of which I was so fortunate 

 as to assist, the superficial character of the deposit struck the 

 eye. The skeleton, with flint knife and ochre near, decked out 

 with the usual shell and deer's tooth ornaments, lay as if in the 

 attitude of sleep, somewhat on the left side. The middle of the 

 body was covered with a large flat stone, with two smaller ones 

 lying by it, while another large stone was laid over the feet. The 

 left arm was bent under the head as if to pillow it, but the 

 extremities of the right arm and the toes were suggestively 

 deficient : the surface covering of big .stones had not sufficiently 

 protected them. The stones themselves seem in turn to have 

 served as a kind of hearth, for a stratum of cliarred and burned 

 bones about 45 cm. thick lay about them. 



Is it reasonable to suppose that a deposit iif this kind took 

 place at the bottom of a pit over 20 feet deep, left open an 

 indefinite time for the convenience of roasting venison at the 

 bottom ? 



A rational survey of the evidence in this as in the other cases 

 leads to the conclusion that we have to deal with surface burial, 

 or, if that word seems too strong, with .simple ' ' seposition " — the 

 imperfect covering with handy stones of the dead bodies as they 

 lay in the attitude of sleep on the then floor of the cavern. In 

 other words, they are in situ in a late qualenary deposit, for 

 which Prof. Issel has proposed the name of " Meiolithic." 



But if this conclusion is to hold good, we have here on the 

 northern coast of the Mediterranean evidence of the existence of 

 a late Pateolithic race, the essential features of which, in the 

 opinion of most competent osteological inquirers, reappear in the 

 Neolithic .skeletons of the same Ligurian coast, and .still remain 

 characteristic of the historical Ligurian type. In other words, 

 the "Mediterranean Race" finds its first record in the West ; 

 and its dilTusion, so far from having necessarily followed the lines 

 of later geographical divisions, may well have begun at a time 

 when the land bridges of " Eurafrica" were still unbroken. 



There is nothing, indeed, in all this to exclude the hypothesis 

 that the original expansion took place from the East African 

 side. That the earliest homes of primxval man lay in a warm 

 region can hardly be doubted, and the abundant discovery by 

 Mr. Seton Karr in Somaliland of Paleolithic imijlements repro- 

 ducing many of the most characteristic forms of those of the 

 grottoes of the Dordogne affords a new link of connection 

 between the Red Sea and the Atlantic littoral. 



When we recall the spontaneous artistic qualities of the ancient 

 race which has left its records in the carvings on bone and ivory 

 in the caves of the " Reindeer Period," this evidence of at least 

 partial continuity on the northern .shores of the Mediterranean 

 suggests speculations of the deepest interest. 0\ erlaid with new 

 elements, swamped in the dull, though materially higher. 

 Neolithic civilisation, may not the old esthetic faculties which 

 made Europe the earliest-known home of anything that can be 

 called human art, as opposed to mere tools and mechanical con- 

 trivances, have finally emancipated themselves once more in the 

 Southern regions, where the old stock most survived ? In the 

 extraordinary manife.stations of artistic genius to which, at widely 

 remote periods, and under the most diverse ]iolitical conditions, 

 the later populations of Greece and Italy have given birth, may 

 we not be allowed to trace the re-emergence, as it were, after 

 long underground meanderings, of streams whose upper waters 

 had seen the daylight of that earlier world ? 



But the vast gulf of time beyond which it is necessary to carry 

 back our gaze in order to establish such connections will hardly 

 permit us to arrive at more than vague probabilities. The 

 practical problems that concern the later culture of Europe from 

 Neolithic times onwards connect themselves rather with its 

 relation to that of the older civilisations on the southern and 

 eastern Mediterranean shores. 



Anthropology, too, has its " Eternal Eastern (Question." Till 



