﻿Ixii PROCEEDINGS OP THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. [May IQICT, 



and Solutrian, they indicate that the primitive inhabitants of 

 France were distinguished from the highest civilized races, not by 

 a smaller, but by a larger cranial capacity; in other words, 

 as we proceed backwards in time the human brain 

 increases in volume. 



This result is the more surprising, when we consider that the 

 skull which at present makes the nearest approach to the Mousterian 

 in its morphological characters is that of the Australian aborigines 

 with a mean capacity of only 1250 c.c. In this respect, though 

 certainly not in others, the Australian skull would seem to be far 

 more primitive than that of Mousterian man. 



It seems probable also that the Mousterians had reached a 

 comparatively high stage in the evolution of religious ideas : the 

 skeletons found at La Chapelle-aux-Saintes and Le Moustier had 

 evidently been interred in a primitive kind of tomb ; and not only 

 had their Aveapons been buried along with the deceased, but in the 

 case of La Chapelle-aux-Saintes the leg of a bison also, plainly 

 intended to provide food for the departed spirit on its journey to 

 the next world. 



The races of Solutrian and Magdalenian times were endowed 

 with no mean intellectual powers ; the steady advance in the 

 perfection of their weapons testifies to their inventiveness; their 

 sculpture in bone and ivory, their line-engravings, and the mural 

 paintings with which they adorned the caves that sheltered tbem 

 are distinguished by truth, vigour, and refinement, and suggest 

 comparison with the art of ancient Greece. Add to this that, 

 according to Piette, they had bridled the horse, and in the case 

 of the Magdalenians had adopted to some extent the custom of 

 wearing clothes. We are thus far from recognizing in these 

 primitive palaeolithic hunters the brutal animal of dawning in- 

 telligence which we have been taught to expect, and the origin of 

 our race must be pushed an indefinite distance farther back. 



We have seen that four of the Mousterian skulls possess a 

 capacity of 1600 c.c. or over, but the Gibraltar skull, which, though 

 ' undated/ is also probably Mousterian, falls far short of this ; 

 according to my measurements, its capacity amounts to 1260 c.c, 

 and I do not think that it can have exceeded this to any appreciable 

 extent. But a range of capacity between 1260 and 1700 c.c. falls 

 well within the limits observed in recent races, whether primitive, 



