| Grimaldi | female | estimated | at | 1.57 m. | 5 ft. 2 in. | ||
| " | youth | " | " | 1.55 m. | 5 ft. 1 in. |
These measurements, however, are only slightly inferior to those of the Crô-Magnon woman and youth, which rise to 5 feet 5 inches. There are many negroid characters in the skull, in the structure of the hip-girdle, and in the proportions of the limbs; there are also some characters in common with the anthropoid apes, namely, the long forearm, the curved thigh-bone, and the marked prognathism, or projection of the tooth row; the face is low and broad, and extremely prognathous; the nose is platyrhine, or broad and flat; the jaw is heavy, with large teeth and without the chin prominence; the head form, like that of the Crô-Magnons, is dolichocephalic and somewhat disharmonic; that is, while the head is long, the face is short and relatively broad. Yet the cranial capacity is relatively high, being estimated at 1,580 c.cm. Unlike the Crô-Magnons, the Grimaldis have a relatively long forearm and a negroid type of pelvis. The proportions of the leg are, however, somewhat similar to those of the leg of the Crô-Magnon, the thigh-bone being short and the shin-bone long, the index being 83.8 per cent. In addition to the long forearm, which approaches in form that of the living anthropoid apes, there is a curved femur, distinctly of anthropoid-ape character.
"In its body and tooth characters," observes Verneau,[(3)] "this negroid race in many respects shows a greater resemblance to the anthropoid apes than does the Neanderthal race." He continues: "The fact remains that at a very remote period of the Pleistocene there existed in Europe, beside the Neanderthal race, a type of man that in many of his cephalic characters, in the structure of his pelvis, and in his limb proportions showed striking analogies to the negro of to-day. In their remarkable proportions they exaggerate some of the peculiarities of the recent negroes; the teeth resemble those of the Australian types. There is evidence of the establishment and spread of the Grimaldi race throughout western Europe, namely, in cases of partial reversion to this type among the skeletal remains of the Neolithic Age, the Bronze Age, and the early Iron Age in Brittany, Switzerland, and northern Italy. Extreme prognathism is the characteristic that most frequently appears, and in some instances there is the broad nose, with the same osteological peculiarities that mark the Grimaldi type. In every instance these individuals show dolichocephaly, nearly always combined with a short, broad face. Until the discovery of the Grimaldi type we were at a loss to explain the existence of these individuals among a population from which they differed so radically."
Fig. 133. The Grimaldi skeletons found in the lower Aurignacian layer of the Grotte des Enfants—the youth to the right and the woman to the left. After Verneau.
Fig. 134. Skull of the Grimaldi youth in front and in profile. After Verneau, one-quarter life size.
Against this opinion of Verneau we should weigh the entire absence of any trace of this Grimaldi race in any part of western Europe among all the burials and other human remains of Upper Palæolithic age known at the present time. Setting aside any such records which are of doubtful authenticity or difficult to diagnose on account of their fragmentary nature, there remains a number of human fossils representing at least ninety individuals discovered at over fifteen widely distributed localities. None of these shows any features of the Grimaldi race.
In describing the Grimaldi skeletons, Keith[(4)] agrees that they are of a mixed or negroid type; the shallow, projecting incisor part of the upper jaw and the characters of the chin are features of recent negroid races; so are the wide opening of the nose, the prominent cheek-bones, the flat and short face. Yet the bridge of the nose is not flat as in negroes, but rather prominent as in Europeans, and the capacity of the skull in the woman (1,375 c.cm.) is ample. In the boy the teeth are large and of the negro type; he bears a striking resemblance to the woman, and his cranial capacity (1,580 c.cm.) indicates a distinctly modern brain; the prominences of the forehead do not meet across the median line as in certain negroids and in the Neanderthals. Keith concludes that the Grimaldi people represent an intermediate type in the evolution of the typical white and black races.