The smaller Grotte des Enfants (Fig. 132), which lies to the west of the Prince's Grotto, was apparently occupied at a somewhat more recent period, because the lowest fire-hearths contain, together with the Mousterian implements, remains of Merck's rhinoceros only—apparently the last survivor here, as well as in other parts of western Europe, of the warm African-Asiatic fauna. The hippopotamus and the straight-tusked elephant had either become extinct or had been driven farther south by the time the hunters first occupied this grotto. In the overlying layers of this and several other grottos the fire-hearths contain remains of a rich forest fauna which includes the wild boar, stag, roe-deer, wild horse, wolf, and bear. The first signs of increasing cold in the mountains to the north is the appearance of remains of the chamois and ibex driven from the Alpine heights. Then in still higher layers appears the reindeer, harbinger of the tundra climate.
The Grimaldi Race
Verneau is inclined to regard the Grimaldi as a very ancient race, antedating the Crô-Magnon.[(2)] He believes that they belong to a new ethnic type which played an important rôle in Europe and enjoyed a wide geographic distribution. There does not, however, seem to be much support for this opinion, because, unlike some other races, no traces of the Grimaldis have been found elsewhere, and it would appear more probable that they were, as their skeletal characters indicate, true negroids which perhaps found their way from Africa but never became established as a race in western Europe.
The type consists of two skeletons found in the Grotte des Enfants by Verneau in 1906. One skeleton is that of a middle-aged woman; the other is that of a youth of sixteen or seventeen. Both are referred to the existing species of man, Homo sapiens. The layer which contained them is on a level two feet lower than any which contained Crô-Magnons, and immediately above the culture layer of Mousterian times.
Fig. 132. Section of the Grotte des Enfants, after Tschirret. In deposits which accumulated to a thickness of over 30 feet this grotto contains in its ascending strata a complete epitome of the vicissitudes of climate, together with four burials of members of the Crô-Magnon Race, and, near the base, the burial of the two Grimaldi skeletons. The layers in descending order are as follows:
A. Burial of two infant skeletons. Remains of forest and alpine (Ibex) mammals.
B. Burial of the skeleton of a Crô-Magnon woman. Remains of forest and alpine mammals.
C. Fire-hearths containing forest mammals—the wild boar, also the reindeer.
D. Fire-hearths with flints of Aurignacian type. Remains of forest fauna—the marten.