It is interesting to find that this smaller variability of fossil races is established in one of the very characters which has been the principal cause of the comparisons of some of our inferior existing races with apes. Among quaternary skulls there are some which may be considered as presenting the mean degree of orthognathism of the white races themselves. The Nagy-Sap skull, the No. 1 of the Trou du frontal, one of the women of Grenelle, etc., may be quoted as examples. Others, such as the No. 2 of the Trou du frontal, another woman of Grenelle, the old man of Cro-Magnon, several crania from Solutré, are more or less prognathous. There are some which equal, or even exceed, in this respect the mean of our Negro races. Nevertheless, there are none which attain a degree of prognathism equal to that presented by certain examples of the inferior Australian types, or of the Kaffir race.
Another order of facts, which, without possessing the importance of the preceding, are still of real value, present similar results. I allude to the stature and to its variations. M. Hamy has determined it by the measurement of the femur and humerus. It appears from his investigations that the maximum presented by the Mentone skeleton is 1·85 m. (6·06 ft.), and the minimum, taken from one of the Furfooz skeletons, is 1·50 m. (4·92 ft.) The difference between these two numbers, 0·35 m. (1·14 ft.), is far smaller than that which exists between the extremes of the table given above.
The mean of the numbers found by M. Hamy, 1·764 m. (5·839 ft.), places the race of Cro-Magnon very near to the Patagonians of Musters; but the Furfooz race, with its mean of 1·530 m. (5·019 ft.), stands well above the Bosjesmans and Mincopies. It occupies almost the same position as the Lapps.
Oscillations have taken place in time as well as in space. The most ancient race is not the tallest. The skeletons of Neanderthal and Brux give a mean of only 1·705 m. (5·593 ft.). The race of Cro-Magnon, superior in height to all others, is chronologically intermediate between them.
The preceding generalizations rest, it is true, upon a number of observations as yet too limited to be regarded as conclusive. But they at least confute some assertions, and tend to dissipate more than one prejudice.
VII. Dolichocephalic or brachycephalic, large or small, orthognathous or prognathous, quaternary man is always man in the full acceptance of the word. Whenever the remains have been sufficient to enable us to form an opinion, we have found the foot and the hand which characterised our species, the vertebral column has displayed the double curvature to which Lawrence ascribes such great importance, and which was made by Serres the attribute of the human kingdom, as he understood it. The more we study the subject, the more are we convinced that every bone of the skeleton, from the most massive to the smallest, carries with it, in its form and proportions, a certificate of origin which it is impossible to mistake.
By reason of its special importance, the skull deserves consideration for a moment from this point of view.
We will first state that all the bones of the modern human skull are to be found in the fossil skull under the same forms, and presenting the same relations. Whether we consider them separately or as a whole, they cannot fail to awaken the recollection of what we see around us every day. Even the immense development of the superciliary ridges in the Neanderthal man cannot disguise the entirely human character of this exceptional skull, which I shall presently discuss more at length.
In all fossil races we find the essentially human character of the predominance of the cranium over the face. With them, as with us, the bony framework which contains the brain becomes longer, narrower, or shorter, at the same time increasing in size; it rises or is flattened, but always preserves a capacity comparable to that of the crania of the present day. In the Neanderthal cranium, which has been termed the most brutal known, the cranial capacity, calculated by men who, we may be sure, did not wish to exaggerate, was as much as 1220 cubic centimetres (74·420 cub. in.). Even M. Schaaffhausen considers it as equal to that of the Malays, and superior to that of Hindoos of small stature. In the Brazilian skull from Lagoa Santa it is 1388 cubic centimetres (84·66 cub. in.).
We can, therefore, with perfect safety apply to the fossil man, with which we are acquainted, the words of Huxley: “Neither in quaternary ages nor at the present time does any intermediary being fill the gap which separates man from the Troglodyte. To deny the existence of this gap would be as reprehensible as absurd.”