16. The Cro-Magnon Race
The Cro-Magnon race is not only within the human species, but possibly among the ancestors of modern Europeans. While Neandertal man is still Homo Neandertalensis—the genus of living man, but a different species—the Cro-Magnon type is Homo sapiens—that is, a variety of ourselves. The age is that of the gradual, fluctuating retreat of the glaciers—the later Cave period of the Old Stone Age: the Upper Palæolithic, in technical language, comprising the Aurignacian, the Solutrean, and the Magdalenian (§ [70]). In years, this was the time from 25,000 to 10,000 B.C.
Some Important Remains of Cro-Magnon Type
| Aurignacian | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| 1868 | Cro-Magnon | Dordogne, France | 5 incomplete skeletons |
| 1872-74 | Grimaldi | Mentone, N.W. Italy | 12 skeletons |
| 1909 | Laugerie Haute | Dordogne, France | Skeleton |
| 1909 | Combe-Capelle | Périgord, France | Skeleton |
| Magdalenian | |||
| 1872 | Laugerie Basse | Dordogne, France | Skeleton |
| 1888 | Chancelade | Dordogne, France | Skeleton, nearly complete |
| 1914 | Obercassel | Near Bonn, Germany | 2 skeletons |
The Cro-Magnon race of Aurignacian times, as represented by the finds at Cro-Magnon and Grimaldi,[2] was excessively tall and large-brained, surpassing any living race of man in both respects.
The adult male buried at Cro-Magnon measured 5 feet 11 inches in life; five men at Grimaldi measured from 5 feet 10½ inches to 6 feet 4½ inches, averaging 6 feet 1½ inches. The tallest men now on earth, certain Scots and Negroes, average less than 5 feet 11 inches. A girl at Grimaldi measured 5 feet 5 inches. This race was not only tall, but clean-limbed, lithe, and swift.
Their brains were equally large. Those of the five male skulls from Grimaldi contain from over 1,700 to nearly 1,900 c.c.—an average of 1,800 c.c.; that of the old man of Cro-Magnon, nearly 1,600 c.c.; of a woman there, 1,550 c.c. If these individuals were not exceptional, the figures mean that the size and weight of the brain of the early Cro-Magnon people was some fifteen or twenty per cent greater than that of modern Europeans.
The cephalic index is low—that is, the skull was long and narrow, as in all the types here considered; but the face was particularly broad. The forehead rose well domed; the supraorbital development was moderate, as in recent men; the features must have been attractive even by our standards.
Three of the best preserved skeletons of the Magdalenian period are those of women. Their statures run 4 feet 7 inches, 5 feet 1 inch, 5 feet 1 inch, which would indicate a corresponding normal height for men not far from that of the average European of to-day. The male from Obercassel attained a stature of about 5 feet 3 inches, a cranial capacity of 1,500 c.c., and combined a long skull with a wide face. The general type of the Magdalenian period might be described as a reduced Cro-Magnon one.
The Cro-Magnon peoples used skilfully made harpoons, originated a remarkable art, and in general attained a development of industries parallel to their high degree of bodily progress.