Fig. 143. The abri or shelter of Laugerie Haute, Dordogne, France, where the Aurignacian burial of a skeleton referred to the Crô-Magnon race, was discovered in 1909. Photograph by Belvès.
The very large skeleton from the Grotte des Enfants, measuring 6 feet 4½ inches, was found associated with the remains of the reindeer, 15 feet below the surface, from which it would appear probable that the skeleton antedates the Aurignacian skeleton of Laugerie Haute, and even of Crô-Magnon. Thus the so-called man of Mentone may be an ancestor of the race which was found in Crô-Magnon and other regions of Dordogne. It is these men of great height, found in Barma Grande and the Grotte des Enfants, which Verneau selects for his description of the primitive members of the Crô-Magnon race, which at this time lived along the Riviera and in the valley of the Vézère and later spread over a vast area in western Europe. It is probable that in the genial climate of the Riviera these men obtained their finest development; the country was admirably protected from the cold winds of the north, refuges were abundant, and game by no means scarce, to judge from the quantity of animal bones found in the caves. Under such conditions of life the race enjoyed a fine physical development and dispersed widely.
Fig. 144. Comparative view of the Neanderthal skeleton (left) from La Chapelle-aux Saints, and of the skeleton of a very tall member of the Crô-Magnon race (right) discovered in the Grotte des Enfants. After Boule and Verneau. Both figures are approximately one-seventeenth life size.
Fig. 145. Sections of the tibia or shin-bone, (1) the normal triangular type; and (2) the extremely platycnæmic flattened type characteristic of the Crô-Magnon race. After Broca.
With an average height of 6 feet 1½ inches, these cave-dwellers may be said to demonstrate one of the most striking traits of the Crô-Magnon race. In the proportions of the limbs and in the great size of the upper part of the chest these men are removed from the modern European type and approach some of the African negroid types, although there is not the least resemblance to the negro type in the skull or in the dentition. In contrast with the Neanderthals are three characters of the limbs: the leg was very long in comparison with the arm; they show a remarkable lengthening of the forearm in proportion to the upper arm and a still more remarkable lengthening of the lower leg or shin-bone in proportion to the thigh-bone; the tibia has an index of 81-86 per cent as compared with the femur, which is relatively greater than that of the average modern European, with a tibiofemoral index of 79.7 per cent. This long shin-bone indicates that these men were swift of foot, quite in keeping with their undoubted nomadic habits and wide distribution. The flatness of the tibia, which is strongly marked in 62 per cent of the skeletons, may well be due to the habit of squatting while engaged in fashioning flints and in other industrial occupations. The leg, long in comparison with the arm, and the thigh-bone, strongly developed, are both characters of a hunting race. The foot has a very protruding heel, but the sole and the toes are of moderate length. The hip-girdle is of a type which has nothing negroid about it, but is as fine as that of the most civilized whites; it is marked by its strength, the augmentation of all the vertical and transverse diameters, and the reduction of the anteroposterior diameters. The shoulders are exceptionally broad. The fact that the arms are relatively short as compared with the legs is also a high racial character. The upper arm is very robust, and in some cases the left arm is more largely developed, in others the right.
In all the skulls from these grottos near Mentone, the face shows the essential features of the Crô-Magnon race, its breadth being due to the development of the cheek-bones and the zygomatic arches, for the upper jaws are narrow, and the nose is thin or leptorhine. At the root the nose shows a marked depression, but it rises immediately to a considerable prominence; it thus undoubtedly had an aquiline profile. The orbits always present the form of a long rectangle, so characteristic of the race along the Vézère. All these characters leave no doubt of the racial affinity of the skeletons from the Grottes de Grimaldi with the original Crô-Magnon type. It must be concluded, therefore, that certain peculiar features noted in the type of the 'old man of Crô-Magnon' are purely individual, and that we are not justified in assuming the admixture of a foreign element to account for the weakness of some characteristics which we notice in the majority of the Crô-Magnon subjects from the caves of Grimaldi.
The highly evolved characters of the skeleton in this race are in keeping with the extraordinarily great cranial capacity. Broca estimated the 'old man of Crô-Magnon' as having a cranial capacity of 1,590 c.cm., and in the female the brain is estimated at 1550 c.cm. Verneau estimates the five large male skulls of Crô-Magnon type at Grimaldi as having an average capacity of 1,800 c.cm., the lowest being 1,715 c.cm., and the highest 1,880 c.cm. This race, observes Keith,[(21)] was one of the finest the world has ever seen. The wide, short face, the extremely prominent cheek-bones, the spread of the palate and a tendency of the upper cutting teeth and incisors to project forward, and the narrow, pointed chin recall a facial type which is best seen to-day in tribes living in Asia to the north and to the south of the Himalayas. As regards their stature the Crô-Magnon race recalls the Sikhs living to the south of the Himalayas. In the disharmonic proportions of the face, that is, the combination of broad cheek-bones and narrow skull, they resemble the Eskimo. The sum of the Crô-Magnon characters is certainly Asiatic rather than African, whereas in the Grimaldis the sum of the characters is decidedly negroid or African.