﻿lx PKOCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. [May I9IO,. 



additional light has been thrown by the skeletons found in the 

 caves of Mentone, and so admirably described by M. Yerneau ; the 

 other by a single skeleton found under a rock-shelter in Chancelade,. 

 not far north of Perigueux. The latter, as clearly shown by 

 Dr. L. Testut, 1 belonged to an adult man about 5 feet in height, who- 

 was beyond doubt an Eskimo. The Cro Magnon race, apparently 

 extinct, were a tall people, 6 feet to 6 feet 3 inches in height ; they 

 combined a long skull with a short face, 2 and made a closer approach 

 to the Mongolian type than to the Eskimo, in which both face andi 

 skull are long. 



The capacity of the Chancelade skull is 1700 cubic centimetres, 

 and thus surpasses the average cranial capacity of the existing 

 Eskimo (1546 c.c), which is itself unusually high. It would 

 appear, therefore, either that the Chancelade skull is not an average 

 example of its kind, or that the Magdalenian Eskimo possessed a< 

 higher cranial capacity than their existing descendants. Indi- 

 viduals with a capacity approaching the average are in every race 

 by far the most numerous, and thus, judging from the doctrine 

 of probabilities alone, the chances are in favour of the latter 

 alternative. 



The cranial capacity of the Cro Magnon race was also very great ;. 

 it ranged from 1590 to 1715 cubic centimetres. 



Thus, both the races which occupied the soil of Europe during 

 Magdalenian times would appear to have been endowed with larger 

 brains than the average of any existing civilized nation. 



In the Solutrian age, to which we now pass, two races also- 

 coexisted. This at least is the conclusion to which Piette was led 

 by a study of the famous statuettes belonging to this period. One of 

 these races, according to Piette, was allied to the existing Bushmen 

 or Hottentots, and the mural paintings found in many of the caves, 

 of Southern France and Northern Spain certainly find their closest 

 parallel in the similar works of art executed by the Bushmen. 

 Confirmation of this view is afforded by two skeletons (one of a 

 woman, the other of a not fully adult man) found in the Grottes. 

 des Enfants, Mentone ; they have been described by Verneau, who- 

 refers them to a 'negroid' race. The cranial capacity of the 

 boy or young man is 1540 c.c, very much above the average of 

 existing Bushmen (1330 c.c.) or indeed of any existing negro race. 



1 ' Eechcrches Anthropologiques sur le Squelette Quarternaire de Chancelade, 

 Dordogne ' Bull. Soc. Anthrop. Lyon, vol. viii (1889). 

 - Verneau, ' Les Grottes de Grimaldi ' 1906. 



