In presence of these facts, we must assuredly acknowledge that even the individual whose remains were found in the Neanderthal cave was capable of possessing all the moral and intellectual qualities compatible with his inferior social condition.
CHAPTER XXVII.
THE CRO-MAGNON RACE.
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.
This skull, so remarkable for its fine proportion, is also remarkable for its capacity. According to M. Broca, who could only work under precautions calculated to diminish the amount, it is equal to at least 1590 cubic centimetres (96·99 cubic inches). I have already remarked that this number is far higher than the mean taken from modern Parisians; it is equally so in comparison with the other European races.
Thus, in the savage of quaternary ages, who had to fight against the mammoth with stone weapons for arms, we find all those craniological characters generally considered as the sign of great intellectual development.
The features of the face are not less striking than those of the skull. In the heads which M. Pruner Bey calls harmonic, a face elongated from above downward corresponds to a skull elongated from behind forward. When there is a disagreement between these proportions the head is dysharmonic. This latter character is very strongly marked in the old man of Cro-Magnon. The bizygomatic transverse diameter acquires an extent rare even in harmonic brachycephali. In his case the facial index descends as low as 63.
This exaggeration in breadth is present also in all the upper and medial parts of the face. The orbits, almost rectilinear at their extremities, are remarkable for their slight elevation, being on the other hand very long. The orbital index descends lower than M. Broca has ever known it to be: it is only 61.