H.— ANTHROPOLOGY. 203 



XI The European Quadrant of the Old World. 



In the Mediterranean basin, it has been suggested, we have from 

 Aurignacian times onwards extreme long-heads, together with perhaps 

 modified or unmodified survivors of the long- but not very narrow-headed 

 type illustrated at Cro Magnon. It is quite possible that these ancient 

 peoples were brownish skinned, and that the Grimaldi element was an 

 important one, for, though we have only the two specimens from Grimaldi 

 and possibly a woman from Mugem as ancient examples, there are 

 numerous traces of an analogous type in present-day populations. The 

 Predmost-Combe Capelle group may also have been important, but was 

 apparently more characteristic farther north, in spite of GiufErida 

 Ruggeri's wish to associate it with Ethiopia. The low long-head from 

 Mechta el Arbi may represent another element. In the western 

 Mediterranean basin, with climatic improvement and beginnings of 

 food production and settlement, it would seem that a balance of develop- 

 ment was reached giving a head long, but not so long nor with such 

 strong pressure of temporal muscles as some of those of early times, with 

 olive or pale complexion and moderate nose and face. Maturity comes 

 earlier, apparently, with settled life in this climate than farther north, or 

 it may be that the girls marry early. With this early maturity may be 

 associated diminution of brow development, also correlated with 

 decrease of temporal muscles, and relative slimness of build. In the 

 desert of Arabia, with its sun-glare and its sharp night-air, we find more 

 skin-colour and more prominent noses. In North Africa, betwixt and 

 between, we have old characters persisting, but with tendencies, on the 

 whole, in the same direction as in the western Mediterranean, though 

 more skin-colour is a feature. Thus one may look upon Mediterranean, 

 Semitic, and so-called Hamitic races as fairly late regional specialisations 

 among the descendants of a mixed lot of types of early long-headed and 

 very-long-headed man. 



In North-West Europe the Predmost-Combe Capelle group seems to 

 have been important, along with probable traces of the Cro Magnon group. 

 The penetration of food-production schemes into this region was apparently 

 slow, and ancient British and Scandinavian skulls, for example, give 

 strong indications of the persistence of old characters. With the growth 

 of settlement and related changes came, it would seem, reduction of the 

 jaws and their muscles, and this, in a region which encouraged long con- 

 tinuation of growth, led to the increase of tallness and to the development 

 of a rather large regularly curved skull, preserving the brow-ridges to 

 some extent, but developing nose and chin and the sagittal curve generally. 

 Thus one may look upon the Nordic Race as a fairly late regional specialisa- 

 tion, probably on the European loess as well as near the Baltic, of the 

 survivors of late Palteolithic men. 



Britain belongs fully neither to the north-west nor to the western 

 Mediterranean region, and, while it shows types fairly closely linked with 

 the specialisations of both these regions, it also shows as its most character- 

 istic element a fair-skinned but rather dark-haired long-head who, however, 

 has a larger nose and a taller stature than is typical of the west Mediter- 

 ranean. This fundamental British type is most likely to be a descendant 



