The skulls of these people have been compared to those of the modern Esthonians or Lithuanians; but on the authority of M. Quatrefages it is stated that, while this applies to the probably later race of smaller men found in some of the Belgian caves, it does not apply so well to the people of Cro-magnon. Are, then, these people the types of any ancient, or of the most ancient, European race? The answer is that they are types of the cave men of the mammoth age in Europe. Another example is the remarkable skeleton of Mentone, in the south of France, found under circumstances equally suggestive of great antiquity. Dr. Rivière, in a memoir on this skeleton, illustrated by two beautiful photographs, shows that the characters of the skull and of the bones of the limbs are similar to those of the Cro-magnon skeleton, indicating a perfect identity of race, while the objects found with the skeleton are similar in character. I had an opportunity of verifying his description by an examination of the skeleton in the Museum of the Jardin des Plantes, in 1883; and more recent discoveries at Mentone have confirmed the conclusion that this man really represents a race of giants, some of them seven feet high, who inhabited Southern Europe in the palanthropic age. A similar skeleton found by Carthaillac, at Laugerie Basse, was buried under a great thickness of accumulated débris of cookery, as well as of large stones fallen from above. This skeleton had its shell ornaments in place on the forehead, arms, legs and feet, in a manner which would induce the belief that they had been attached to a head-dress, sleeves, leggings, and shoes or moccasins. (See illustration on p. [79].)
HANDLE OF A PIERCER, OR BODKIN, IN BONE, FROM LAUGERIE BASSE, IN FORM OF A DEER
(a) Hollow for thumb; (b) hollow for finger. Reduced to one-half. From a cast of the original
FLINT FLAKE KNIFE, FOUND IN THE HAND OF THE 'GIANT' SKELETON OF MENTONE (after Evans)
The ornaments of Cro-magnon were perforated shells from the Atlantic and pieces of ivory. Those at Mentone were perforated Neritinæ from the Mediterranean and canine teeth of the deer. In both cases there was evidence that these ancient people painted themselves with red oxide of iron, and used bodkins of bone, and long and beautifully-formed flint knives, perhaps for dividing their food, or perhaps for sacrificial purposes. Skulls found at Clichy and Grenelle in 1868 and 1869 are described by Professor Broca and M. Fleurens as of the same general type, and the remains found at Gibraltar and in the cave of Paviland, in England, seem also to have belonged to this race. The celebrated Engis skull from one of the Belgian caves, which is believed to have belonged to a contemporary of the mammoth, is also of this type, though less massive than that of Cro-magnon; and lastly, even the somewhat degraded Neanderthal skull, found in a cave near Düsseldorf, though, like those of Clichy, Canstadt, Spy and Gibraltar, inferior in frontal development, is referable to the same peculiar long-headed style of man, in so far as can be judged from the portion that remains, though certainly to a ruder and more degraded variety, commonly known as the Canstadt man as distinguished from the Engis or Cro-magnon.
