Men of the Old Stone Age: Their Environment, Life and ArtOsborn, Henry Fairfield
History
Men of the Old Stone Age: Their Environment, Life and Art
Osborn, Henry Fairfield
Art, Primitive; Prehistoric peoples; Stone age
In 1871 a skullcap, now in the Royal Museum of Vienna, was discovered in
the course of coal mining at Brüx, Bohemia. In 1891(41) a skeleton,
apparently of the same race, was discovered at Brünn, Moravia, deeply
embedded in loess along with bones of the woolly mammoth and other great
Pleistocene mammals. In 1892 it was described by Makowsky,(42) who a few
years before had excavated from the loess sand in the neighborhood of
Brünn the fragmentary skull now known as Brünn II. Both these skulls are
of a somewhat low racial type, and for a long time they were regarded as
transition forms between the Neanderthals and _Homo sapiens_, but in 1906
Schwalbe(43) showed the affinity between the skulls of Brüx and Brünn and
at the same time their entire distinctness from the Neanderthal skull and
their approach to lower forms of _Homo sapiens_. The chief distinction of
these skulls is their extreme elongation or dolichocephaly, the ratio of
width to length being 69 per cent in the Brüx skull, and 68.2 per cent in
the Brünn skull. The latter ranks lower in racial type than the Australian
negroids. The chief distinction from the Neanderthal skull is in the index
of the height of skull (51.22 per cent) and in the absence of the
prominent ridges extending across the eyebrow region above the nose;[AS]
the forehead, in brief, is more modern, the frontal angle being 74.7-75
per cent. The brain capacity in this race is estimated, according to
Makowsky,(44) at 1,350 c.cm. Both the Brüx and Brünn skulls are
_harmonic_; they do not present the very broad, high cheek-bones
characteristic of the Crô-Magnon race, the face being of a narrow, modern
type, but not very long. There is evidence that the neck and shoulders
were powerful and muscular; the prominence of the chin is pronounced; the
dentition is macrodont, that is, the last lower molar is of exceptionally
large size; there was no prognathism or protrusion of the jaws. The second
Brünn skull (Brünn II) may represent a female type of the Brünn race, the
cephalic index being estimated at 72 per cent.
[Illustration: FIG. 168. The type skull known as Brünn I--supposed
male--discovered at Brünn, Moravia, in 1891. It was found deeply imbedded
in loess along with bones of the woolly mammoth, woolly rhinoceros, giant
deer, reindeer, and other Pleistocene mammals, and is believed to be of
Solutrean age. After Makowsky. One-third life size.]
DISCOVERIES CHIEFLY OF THE CRÔ-MAGNON AND BRÜNN RACES[AT]
REFERRED TO SOLUTREAN TIMES
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