The Meeting-Place of Geology and HistoryDawson, John William, Sir
Religion
The Meeting-Place of Geology and History
Dawson, John William, Sir
Deluge; Prehistoric peoples
We have thus traces of two primitive or antediluvian races, one probably
mild and subsisting on vegetable food, and another fierce, rude and
carnivorous, perhaps a product of degeneracy of the former; and a third,
or mixed race, of greater physical power and energy than either of the
others. This is of course merely a hypothetical reading of the facts,
but it is by no means improbable, and would, as we shall see, bring them
into close relation with the teachings of history and tradition as to
the antediluvian age.
The most careful and elaborate studies of these several types have been
made by MM. Quatrefages and Hamy. The former sums up the races of fossil
or 'quaternary' men as six in number, viz.: (1) The Canstadt;
(2) the Cro-magnon; (3) the mesitocephalic race of Furfooz; (4) the
sub-brachycephalic race of Furfooz; (5) the race of Grenelle; (6) the
race of Truchère. Of these only three (namely, Nos. 1, 2, and 6)
properly belong to the palanthropic age. The races of Furfooz[24] and of
the upper beds of Grenelle are neanthropic, because they are found with
the animal remains of that age, and they resemble in cranial characters
the neanthropic peoples.
[24] Noticed later, in Chapter VII.
The Canstadt and Cro-magnon races resemble each other in being
long-headed or dolichocephalic, and in having strong and coarsely-made
facial bones, but the Canstadt race has a comparatively low fore-*head
with strong superciliary arches, and round eye-sockets. The Cro-magnon
race has a brain-case of more than ordinary capacity, a more elevated
fore-*head, and eye-sockets singularly elongated horizontally. Broca has
measured the cubic contents of the Cro-magnon skull, and gives as the
result 1,590 cubic centimetres, or 119 centimetres more than the
average of 125 modern Parisian skulls. The Canstadt men were of
moderate stature, but strongly built and muscular. The Cro-magnon race
was of great stature, some skeletons approaching to seven feet in
height, and affording evidence of immense muscular development.
[Illustration: SKULL FROM TRUCHÈRE, SHOWING A PECULIAR PALANTHROPIC TYPE
ALLIED TO NEANTHROPIC RACES (after Quatrefages)]
The race of Truchère is represented by only a single skull; but
Quatrefages vouches for it as belonging to the age of the mammoth. It is
a well-formed brachycephalic cranium of unusually great internal
capacity, and would be regarded anywhere as indicating a race of high
and refined cerebral endowment. If really of the mammoth age, it may
have belonged to a straggler or captive from a higher and more cultured
tribe, introduced accidentally into a sepulchre of the Cro-magnon
period. It connects itself with the speculation in the preceding pages
as to the existence of such a race. This skull resembles, as we should
expect, the type of the neanthropic men who spread over the earth at the
beginning of that later age.
Table Showing Relations of Later Cenozoic Ages in Europe
Later cenozoic
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