REPORT ON THE BONES OF THE HUMAN SKELETON. 
119 
present century, in different parts of Europe, have brought to light both skulls and 
skeletons, which are referred to the time when the mammoth, the reindeer, and the cave 
bear were the mammals of the south of Europe. Apparently at that epoch, as at the 
present, three different forms of human skull occurred, dolichocephalic, mesaticephalic, 
and brachycephalic. The dolichocephalic skulls are represented by the Neanderthal 
cranium and the skulls of Canstadt, Wiirtemberg, and of the cave-dwellers of Cro-Magnon 
in the valley of the Vezere ; mesaticephalic skulls have been found at Furfooz in the 
valley of the Lesse, Belgium, and brachycephalic skulls have been discovered in gravel 
pits at Grenelle, near Paris, and at La Truchere . 1 As in the skulls of the present day, 
some of these ancient crania, in which the face has been preserved, have a prognathic 
condition of the upper jaw, whilst others are orthognathic. In their internal capacity 
many of these crania are equal to the mean of modern European skulls. The vault of the 
skull is in a number of specimens arched, as in all well-formed crania, though in others, 
as the Neanderthal skull, it is more depressed and associated with strongly projecting 
glabella and supraciliary ridges. 
In many of the skeletons of these primitive men, especially those from Cro-Magnon, 
a large proportion of the tibiae were platyknemic ; the femora were prismatic, and 
with a strongly projecting linea aspera ; and the humeri were perforated by a supra- 
trochlear foramen in the olecranoid fossa. As has been pointed out in the description 
of the skeletons of the existing races described in this Report, instances of a correspond- 
ing conformation of these bones not unfrequently occurred. 
Amongst existing races of men, therefore, craniological and skeletal characters are 
met with similar to those which have been recognised in the most ancient human 
remains that have yet been discovered , 2 and the differences that exist between the skulls 
and skeletons of primitive man are no more, either in kind or degree, than are to be seen 
in the corresponding parts in the men of the present day. 
In the examination of the skeletons of existing races of men, characters sometimes pre- 
sent themselves in certain races which one recognises as more in accordance with the ordi- 
nary mammalian arrangement than is the case in the corresponding parts of other races. 
For example, in adults of the black races the conjugate diameter of the pelvic brim tends to 
preponderate over the transverse diameter, and the forearm to be longer in proportion 
to the upper arm, than in adults of the white races, so that it may be said that in these 
respects the white man is more highly developed than the black man. In other words, 
the adult skeleton in the white man, in the relative proportions of these parts, is further 
removed from the proportions found both in lower mammals and in the infantile 
1 The characters of these crania have been most carefully described by MM. de Quatrefages and Hamy in their 
great work, Crania Ethnica. 
2 Some years ago I pointed out that skulls of the Neanderthaloid type were closely paralleled in the crania of 
many existing savage races as well as in modern Europeans, Quarterly Journal of Science, April and October, 1864. See 
also de Quatrefages, L’espece humaine, and Verneau, La race de Cro-Magnon, Revue cC Anthropologic, January 1886. 
