120 Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh. [sess. 
and other discoveries in the Mentone caves, which is now being 
prepared under the direction of the Prince of Monaco. We have 
already seen that in the same cave, and only 0’70 metre (27J 
inches) above the site of the two skeletons just referred to, another 
skeleton of the Cro-Magnon type has been discovered, thus bring- 
ing two different races almost on the same chronological horizon. 
But this by no means discredits Dr Verneau’s theory, as it is not 
at all unlikely that, while a higher race was being developed, 
some individuals of lower but vanishing races still survived in 
Europe. Indeed, the point is no longer a matter of conjecture, as 
recently two skulls of a distinct negroid type have been found 
among Neolithic remains in Brittany.* The skull of the ‘old 
man of Cro-Magnon’ is large and well-proportioned, both pos- 
teriorly and anteriorly, thus indicating a great stride in the 
development of mental capacity, but perhaps not more than might 
be expected of a people who displayed such artistic feeling 
and mechanical skill as the authors of the art gallery of the rein- 
deer period. But how radically their aims, hopes, aspirations, and 
manner of life differed from those of their Neolithic successors we 
shall immediately be in a position to realise. 
It would appear from these combined sources of investigation 
that the earliest Palaeolithic people of Europe entered the country 
from Africa, at a time when there was easy communication between 
these continents by several land bridges across the present basin of 
the Mediterranean. At that time man’s mental predominance over 
other animals was not so conspicuous as it now is, as shown by the 
fact that his mechanical ingenuity was only adequate to the pro- 
duction of one typical implement — the coup de poing. Implements 
of this kind are chiefly found in the stranded gravels of former 
rivers, and, from their wide distribution in the Old World, they 
must have been then regarded as the ne plus ultra of human 
craftsmanship. Their original owners are supposed to have in- 
habited the wooded banks of these rivers, wandering about in 
isolated family groups till the advent of the glacial period roused 
their dormant energies. It is difficult to realise how much the 
severe climatal conditions which then prevailed in Europe con- 
tributed to the perfection of human attributes, and consequently 
* Bull, de la Societe d' Anthropologic de Paris , series v., vol. iv. p. 432. 
