I. In the year 1858, in the valley of the Vézère, near to the
village of Les Eyzies, which had already been rendered famous by
the investigations of the elder M. Lartet and Christy, the workmen
brought to light in the rock-shelter of Cro-Magnon the bones of
three men, a woman and a child, which have been preserved to
science by MM. Berton-Meyron and Delmarès. M. Louis Lartet, to
whom the study of the deposit had been entrusted, determined their
geological age; MM. Broca and Pruner Bey described them with all
the precision which we should expect from their knowledge of the
subject, and the discussions which arose between these two eminent
anthropologists, brought the essential points still more strongly
forward. The Cro-Magnon bones thus became classic almost within a day
of their discovery; and M. Hamy and I could not do better than group
around them the human remains which resemble them. This has been
our reason for choosing the name which we have given to our second
dolichocephalic race.
Like the preceding one, this also has its typical individual who
exaggerates in certain respects the characters of the race, and thus
presents an extreme term of comparison. The contrast is only the more
striking. The only character common to both the Neanderthal man and
the old man of Cro-Magnon lies in the proportions of the cranium. The
cephalic index, here 73·76, differs but very slightly, as we see at
once from what we have already stated. It descends, moreover, as low
as 70·05 in a cranium of the same race found at Solutré; it is 70·52
in the famous Engis cranium. It was this elongation from the front
backwards which led Schmerling to connect the fossil man which he had
just discovered with the Ethiopian rather than with the European.
This, at least, partly accounts for the theory which makes the Negro
the starting point of our race. M. Hamy, in connecting the Engis
cranium with the Cro-Magnon type, has added one more fact to those
which are at variance with this doctrine.
In every other respect the Cro-Magnon head and that of Canstadt
are most dissimilar. Instead of a low and retreating forehead
above superciliary ridges which remind us of the ape, instead
of a flattened vault like that of the Neanderthal skull and its
companions, we here find a large forehead rising above frontal
sinuses but slightly marked, and a vault presenting the finest
proportions. The frontal bone is remarkably developed from before
backward. The fronto-occipital curve is continued with a striking
regularity till within a short distance above the lambda. It is there
bent so as to form a surface which is prolonged upon the cerebral
part of the occipital bone. The cerebral region of the same bone is
carried abruptly downward, and presents numerous strong impressions
of muscular insertions.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account