Also of Mousterian age are the skeleton discovered in August, 1908,[[53]] and the skull in February, 1909, at La Chapelle-aux-Saints, Corrèze, and the skeleton exhumed in September in the latter year at Ferrassie, Dordogne, by M. Peyrony, who had previously discovered another skeleton of the same age at Peche de l’Azé, near Sarlat, also in Dordogne. These two finds have not yet been described.
[53]. Bouysonnie et Bardon, l’Anthropologie, xix., 1908, p. 513.
Skull of the fossil man of La Chapelle-aux-Saints,
after the restoration of the nasal bones and jaws. From l’Anthropologie, xx.,
1909, p. 267; with the permission of Professor M. Boule.
Compared with the short stature (5ft. 3in.) of the La Chapelle man, the skull is of remarkably large size. It is narrow, with a flattened cranial vault and enormous brow-ridges; the orbits are large, and the face is very projecting. Professor Boule agrees with other investigators in regarding this skull as belonging to the Neanderthal-Spy type, and considers that the group is distinct from all other human groups, living or fossil.[[54]]
[54]. M. Boule, l’Anthropologie, xix., 1908, p. 519; xx., 1909, p. 257. See also M. Alsberg, Globus, xcv., 1909, and H. Klaatsch, Arch. für Anth., N.F., vii., p. 287.
As Professor Sollas points out, “the primitive inhabitants of France were distinguished from the highest civilized races, not by a smaller, but by a larger, cranial capacity; in other words, as we proceed backwards in time the human brain increases in volume.”[[55]] We know that they buried their dead, and in some cases provided weapons and food for use in a future state. Their inventiveness is proved by the variety and gradual improvement in the technique of their tools and weapons. Their carvings in the round or low relief, their spirited engravings on bone and ivory, and their wonderful mural paintings, whether in outline, shaded monochrome, or polychrome, evince an astonishing æsthetic sense and technical skill.
[55]. Quart. Journ. Geol. Sci., vol. 66, 1910, p. lxii.
As the diggers in Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece, Crete, and elsewhere, have proved that civilisation was far more ancient than could have been conceived even fifty years ago, so the cave explorers have shown us that during the latter half of the Palæolithic age there lived mighty hunters, skilful artists, big-brained men, who laid the foundations upon which subsequent generations have built. This, then, is the lesson that the latest results of investigations into the antiquity of man has taught us—that brain, not brawn, has been the essential factor in the evolution of man. The human brain had developed at a greater rate than the body, which even then retained unmistakable evidence of man’s lowly origin. How long had this evolution been progressing before Mousterian times?[[56]] The ruder stone implements of the Acheulian and Chellian epochs carry us an appreciable time backward; and if even some of the eoliths are artifacts, we can project tool-using man to yet earlier times. Then the record becomes blurred, as it is manifestly impossible to decide whether simple bruising of stones was caused by man or natural agencies.
[56]. W. L. H. Duckworth, Morphology and Anthropology, 1904, p. 520.