Referred to Solutrean Times

Date of
Discovery		LocalityNumber of
Individuals		Culture Stage
Crô-Magnon Race (?)
Grotte du Placard, Charente, France.Fragments of ten skulls
and a few other bones.		Late Solutrean and
early Magdalenian.
Pair-non-Pair, Gironde, France.Skull fragments.Solutrean.
Lacave, Lot, France."""
Montconfort, Haute-Garonne, France."""
Roset, Tarn, France.""Late Solutrean.
Badegoule, Dordogne, France.Bones.Solutrean.
Brünn-Brüx-Předmost Race
1880.Předmost, Moravia, Austria.Portions of twenty skeletons.Solutrean.
1891.Brünn, Moravia, Austria.Male skeleton (Brünn I).
(?) Female skeleton (Brünn II).		"
Ballahöhle, Miskolcz, Hungary.Skeleton of infant.(?)"
(?) Galley Hill.One skeleton.Unknown.

There is a possibility[(47)] that the Brünn race was ancestral to several later dolichocephalic groups which are found in the region of the Danube and of middle and southern Germany. Schliz characterizes the Brünn skull as distinguished by the retreating forehead, by massive eminences above the orbits separated by a cleft in the median line, by broad, low orbits, and prominent chin. These characters are met with again in one of the dolichocephalic skulls found in the interment at Ofnet, at the very close of Upper Palæolithic times. It would thus appear that the Brünn race is distinct from the Crô-Magnon race, that it represents a long-headed type which became established along the Danube as early as Solutrean times, and that it may possibly be connected with the introduction of some of the peculiar features of the Solutrean culture.

One of the skeletons of Brünn, found at a depth of 12 feet below the surface of the 'loess,' was lavishly adorned with tooth-shells, perforated stone discs, and bone ornaments made from the ribs of the rhinoceros or mammoth and from the teeth of the mammoth; associated with these was an ivory idol, apparently of a male figure, of which only the head, the torso, and the left arm remain. The skeleton and many of the objects found with the sepulture were partly tinted in red. An ivory figurine belongs to the Eburnéen stage of Piette and appears to indicate that the burial was of Aurignacian rather than of Solutrean age.

The Předmost 'mammoth hunters' also probably belonged to this race. They are represented by the remains of six individuals excavated since 1880 at Předmost, Moravia, by Wankel, Kr̆íz̆, and Mas̆ka. The bones were found in a very much shattered condition. Mas̆ka has since discovered a collective burial of fourteen human skeletons, with remains of six others; the bodies were covered with stones, but no flints or objects of art were buried with them. The dimensions of the limbs indicate a race of large stature. The skeletons were deeply buried in 'loess,' and above and below the rich archæological layer were abundant débris of the mammoth, representing between eight and nine hundred specimens. Along with the numerous flints, including laurel-leaf spear heads of middle Solutrean type, were found other objects and even primitive works of art in bone and ivory. There is no question that the human remains belong to the middle Solutrean stage.[(48)]

With this race is also associated by many authors (Schwalbe, Schliz, Klaatsch, Keith) the Galley Hill skull, which was found in 1888, buried at a depth of 8 feet in the 'high terrace' gravels 90 feet above the Thames.[(49)] Sollas thinks it highly probable that the remains were in a natural position and of the same age as the high-level gravels and the Palæolithic flints and remains of extinct animals which they contained, but Evans and Dawkins regard the Galley Hill man as belonging to a long-headed Neolithic race interred in a Palæolithic stratum. The gravels of the 'high terrace' in which the Galley Hill skull was buried are by no means of the geologic antiquity of 200,000 years assigned to them by Keith;[(50)] they are probably of Fourth Glacial or of Postglacial age, and lie within the estimates of Postglacial time, namely, from 20,000 to 40,000 years.

The antiquity of the Galley Hill cranial type has been maintained with ability by Keith. The skull is extremely long or hyperdolichocephalic, the cephalic index being estimated by Keith at 69 per cent;[(51)] the brain capacity is estimated at between 1,350 c.cm. and 1,400 c.cm.; the cheek-bones are not preserved, so that no judgment can be formed as to this most distinctive character of the Crô-Magnon race. With this Galley Hill race Keith also compares the Combe-Capelle, or Aurignacian man of Klaatsch,[(52)] although he mistakenly considers the Combe-Capelle man of much less geologic antiquity. He continues: "Thus, while the writer is inclined to agree in provisionally assigning the Combe-Capelle man to the Galley Hill race, he believes that further discoveries will show that the Combe-Capelle man belongs to a branch marked with certain negroid features."

Solutrean Flint Industry

The 'Solutrean retouch' marks one of the most notable advances in the technique of flint working; it is altogether distinct from the 'Aurignacian retouch,' which is an heritage from the Mousterian.[(53)] The flint is chipped off by pressure in fine, thin flakes from the entire surface of the implement, to which in its perfected form the craftsman can give a thin, sharp edge and perfect symmetry. This is a great advance on the abrupt Aurignacian retouch, in which the flint is chipped back at a rather blunt angle to make a sharp edge. According to de Mortillet, the Solutrean method of pressure made possible the execution of much more delicate work.