Cave Hunting: Researches on the evidence of caves respecting the early inhabitants of EuropeDawkins, William Boyd
History
Cave Hunting: Researches on the evidence of caves respecting the early inhabitants of Europe
Dawkins, William Boyd
Antiquities, Prehistoric -- Europe; Caves -- Europe; Europe -- Antiquities; Prehistoric peoples -- Europe
The crania (Figs. 65, 66) are brachy-cephalic (see Table, p. 199), and
are possessed, according to M. Arnould, of the following characters.
The apex of the cranial vault is flattened, probably artificially, and
the parietal bosses are largely developed, to which is due the great
width of the skull. The surciliary ridges are strongly marked, and the
malar bones are prominent. In all these particulars they agree with the
broad skulls, as defined by Dr. Thurnam, discovered in the round tumuli
of Britain and the sepulchral caves of France.
[Illustration: FIG. 67.--Platycnemic tibia, from Sclaigneaux.]
Some of the leg-bones presented the antero-posterior flattening, or
platycnemism, observed in the skeletons from the caves of Gibraltar,
and in France and Great Britain (Fig. 67). It is due, as in those from
North Wales, to the anterior expansion of the bone, and not to the
posterior, as is the case with those from the cave of Cro-Magnon.
A beautifully chipped arrow-head, with barbs and central tongue for
insertion into the shaft, of the same type as one from Chauvaux,
implies that these remains belong to the neolithic age. Implements of
bone, and a shell perforated for suspension, were also found.
_The Evidence of History as to the Peoples of Gaul and Spain._
The extension of this non-Aryan race through France, Spain, and
Britain, in ancient times, based solely on the evidence of the human
remains, is confirmed by an appeal to the ethnology of Europe within
the historic period. In the Iberian peninsula the Basque populations
of the west are defined from the Celtic of the east by the Celtiberi
inhabiting the modern Castille (see Map, Fig. 68). In Gaul the province
of Aquitania extended as far north, in Cæsar’s time,[140] as the river
Garonne, constituting the modern Gascony, to which was added, in the
days of Augustus, the district between that river and the Loire;
a change of frontier that was probably due to the predominance of
Basque blood in a mixed race in that area similar to the Celtiberi
of Castille. The Aquitani were surrounded on every side, except the
south, by the Celtæ, extending as far north as the Seine, as far to
the east as Switzerland and the plains of Lombardy, and southwards,
through the valley of the Rhone and the region of the Volcæ, over the
Eastern Pyrenees into Spain. The district round the Phocæan colony
of Marseilles was inhabited by Ligurian tribes, who held the region
between the river Po and the Gulf of Genoa, as far as the western
boundary of Etruria, and who probably extended to the west along
the coast of Southern Gaul as far as the Pyrenees.[141] They were
distinguished from the Celtæ, not merely by their manners and customs,
but by their small stature and dark hair and eyes, and are stated by
Pliny and Strabo to have inhabited Spain. They have also left marks of
their presence in Central Gaul in the name of the Loire (Ligur), and
possibly in Britain in the obscure name of the Lloegrians. They invaded
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