For the end of the Lower Palæolithic, in the Mousterian, conditions change, and skeletal remains become authentic and comparatively numerous. From this period date the skeletons of the Neandertal species of man: a short, thickset race, powerful in bones and musculature, slightly stooping at the knee and at the shoulder, with a thick neck and a large head (§ [14]). The brain was about as large as that of modern man, but the retreating aspect of the forehead was accentuated by heavy brow ridges.

In the Upper Palæolithic the Neandertal species has disappeared. The first precursors of Homo sapiens, or modern man, have come on the scene. A sort of transition from Neandertal man may be presented by the Brünn type, but the prevailing race in western Europe during the Upper Palæolithic period is that of Cro-Magnon, a tall, lithe, well-formed people, as agile and swift as Neandertal man was stocky and strong. The head and features were well proportioned, the skull and brain remarkably large, the general type not inferior to modern man, and probably already proto-Caucasian (§ [16]).

Grimaldi man, so far known only from one spot on the Mediterranean shore of Europe, was proto-Negroid, Aurignacian in period, and therefore partly contemporaneous with the Cro-Magnon race (§ [18]).

In summary, the types of man in Europe during the Old Stone Age have been as follows:

MagdalenianCro-Magnon
SolutreanCro-Magnon; Brünn
AurignacianCro-Magnon (Caucasian); also, locally Grimaldi (Negroid)
MousterianNeandertal (possibly without living descendants)
AcheuleanUnknown
ChelleanUnknown; Piltdown perhaps Pre-Chellean

The interrelations of geology, glaciation, human types, periods of the Stone Age, and estimated time in years are brought together in the tables “Antiquity of Man” and “Prehistory” (Figs. [5] and [17].)[10]

Fig. 17. Earliest Prehistory of Europe. This table is an elaboration of the upper portion of [Figure 5]. Equal lapses of time are indicated by equal vertical distances. The general acceleration of development is evident.