The human species

by A. de Quatrefages

The intervention of these different races in the formation of existing races is equally evident. The exact demonstration of the fact is, however, often difficult. The crossing which took place between groups placed in such close contact with each other, more or less confused the types. Other brachycephalic types, amongst others the Celtic race, such as it has been described by M. Broca, came to add to the confusion. Nevertheless, when visiting the valley of the Lesse, several members of the Congress of prehistoric Anthropology recognised skulls and faces as bearing in the clearest manner, the distinctive marks of the local fossil races, and these traces are still more frequent in the rural population which supplies the markets of Antwerp.

It is the race of Grenelle, again, which reappears most persistently in living populations. The numerous Parisian skulls in the Paris Museum present several examples of this fact. The type is, however, very rarely found pure, a fact, which is probably the result of two causes. On the one hand, the new conditions of existence imposed upon the quaternary races by change of climate, must have caused an alteration in some of their characteristics. On the other hand, fresh elements, differing but slightly from the fossil element, have been blended with it. If the skulls of Grenelle are compared, as they have been by M. Hamy, with Lapp skulls, we find that from the extent of the horizontal arc, from the length of the antero-posterior and transverse diameters, and from the cephalic indices, the former must be placed almost exactly half-way between the two great known orders of Lapp skulls. We observe indeed, certain differences between them. For example, the cranial vault is more flattened in the Lapp than in the man of Grenelle; but, on the whole, the analogies are far greater in number than the differences.

The elder Retzius, Sven Nilsson, Eschricht, and others, had already recognised, by means of their investigations of the ancient burials of their country, the great extension of an ancient brachycephalic race, which they identified with the true Lapps. M. Schaafhausen, at the last Stockholm Congress, brought forward another example in support of this opinion.

After considering these facts, M. Hamy and I have been led to admit a Lapp-like type, to which, with the race of Grenelle, a great number of populations scattered through time, and extending over nearly the whole of Europe, may be referred. In the Dauphiné Alps particularly, this type is represented in an almost pure state. A curious collection of skulls in the possession of M. Hoël leaves no room for doubt on this point. We have then confirmed, while giving it greater precision and tracing it to an earlier period, one of those general views, for which anthropology owes so much to the Scandinavian savants.

X. Thus, the races of Furfooz and that of Grenelle, the last to appear in the quaternary epoch, came in contact during the glacial ages with the dolichocephalic races which had preceded them. In certain respects they have become amalgamated with them; in others, they have preserved their autonomy; and they have shared the same fate. They also experienced that change of soil and climate, which we have seen causing such trouble to the rising societies of the Cro-Magnon race; they also witnessed a gradual change in the conditions of existence; and the results of these changes have affected them in the manner which we have already pointed out.

A certain number of tribes spread northwards, following the reindeer and other animal species which they had been accustomed to regard as necessary to their existence; they emigrated in latitude. Others from the same motive emigrated in altitude, accompanying the chamois and bouquetin into the mountain chains, which had been liberated by the melting of glaciers. Others, again, remained stationary. The two first groups were free for a much longer time from the influence of ethnical mixture. The tribes composing the third soon found themselves in the presence of brachycephalic and dolichocephalic immigrants of the polished stone period, and were easily subjugated and absorbed by them.

XI. On their arrival in Europe, the men of the polished stone period did not meet only with those races which we have been discussing. They came in contact with all the quaternary races. This is proved by many of the facts already mentioned; and is proved merely by the magnificent collection of skulls and skeletons collected by M. de Baye from the sepulchral grottoes of the Marne. With the exception of the Canstadt type, all those which we have just described seem to have met together in this remarkable locality. Even that of La Truchère is represented by a head almost as strongly characterised as that of the Seille. The foundation of this neolithic population still belonged, however, to a newly arrived type. It is scarcely necessary to add that, whether old or recent, all these races have intermingled, and that the crossing is betrayed sometimes by the fusion, and sometimes by the juxtaposition, of characteristics.

Either by infiltration or conquest, new races mingled with the preceding, before even the arrival of the Aryans. The latter spread to the western extremities of the continent, leaving extensive regions on the north and the south, where their predecessors continued to exist. Then followed historic invasions. It is from the mixture of all these elements brought together by war, and fused by the experiences of peace, that our European societies have been formed.