M. Lagneau said the researches made in Belgium showed there were three perfectly distinct species of men in this country, and he opposed M. Dupont's opinion that the skulls of Furfooz belong to the Mongoloid race. M. Hamy demonstrated anatomically that a particular race, the Australioid, is spread throughout Europe. The jaw from Naulette appears to belong to this race; the skull from Engis belongs to another. M. Hamy thought he discovered some of the characteristics of the Australioid race in certain inferior types in Belgium and France. These primitive races are not extinct. They still peep out in isolated cases of atavism, and he exhibited a curious instance—the hideous portrait of a boat-woman of the neighborhood of Mons, with all the characteristics of the Australioid race of the mammoth period. In this selection of a Montois type there was a spice of revenge evident to every one. M. Virchow found a manifest difference between the skulls at the British Museum and those of criminals in the collection at the university. The Flemish skulls present the same prognathism as those of Furfooz, and certain types have characteristics that might cause them to be classed with the Mongoloid race.
As to the size of the skull, it is not owing to the development of the psychical faculties, and we should be cautious about drawing premature conclusions concerning the primitive races of this country. M. Virchow cited the example of the two skulls found in a Greek tomb of the Macedonian epoch, the form and size of which induced him to class them unhesitatingly with the Mongoloids of the caverns of the Lesse. Now, one of these skulls was that of a Greek woman of great distinction, both as to her social condition and intellectual culture. The learned professor from Berlin expressed a doubt as to the Germanic origin of the Flemings. M. Lagneau also thought we should not decide too hastily about the races that first inhabited Belgium. He could not see why the Flemings and Germans should have the same origin. In Germany, Belgium, and France the races are excessively mixed up. Germany was repeatedly invaded by people from Gaul. Prognathism alone is not typical any more than the temperament, color of the hair, etc.
M. Vanderkindere thought the Flemish of Germanic origin, and the Walloon of Celtic. Blondes do not belong to the Aryan races. Prognathism is more common in them than in the dark people of the country, in which the speaker finds Ligurian traces, as in the basin of the Loire (Liger-Liguria). Now, the blonde race, has always thought itself superior, [pg 834] and this belief was so strong in Flanders in the heart of the middle ages that the mother of Berthulphe de Ghistelles, displeased at the alliance her son had contracted with the beautiful Godelive, a native of Boulonnais, whom her contemporaries reproached solely on account of her black hair and eyebrows, expressed her contempt in these significant terms: “Cur, inquit, cornicem de terra aliena eduxisti?” She thought it disgraceful to defile the pure blood of her antique Germanic race (alti tui sanguinis) by such an alliance.
In a subsequent session, this question of races came on the carpet again. M. Dupont, combining the observations made in the three excursions (that to Namur had taken place the day before), established a filiation between the different peoples who inhabited Belgium in different periods of the stone age. The people of Mesvin, the Somme, the Tamise, and the Seine were contemporaries. The race of Mesvin inhabited Hainault at the same time as the troglodytes, whom they did not know. It might have been the people of Mesvin and the Somme, who, gradually attaining to polished stone, invaded the country occupied by the less advanced people of the caverns. M. Virchow could not recommend too much prudence to those who are investigating the science of anthropology. In prehistoric times, as in our day, there were variations of the same race, but that is not accounted for by atavism. It must be concluded that men were simultaneously created or born in several places, and different types sprang from the commingling of the actual races. We take pleasure in collecting these indirect acknowledgments from the lips that dared say, “There is no place in the universe for a God, nor in man for a soul.” M. de Quatrefages thought, like M. Virchow, that all the various races cannot be owing to atavism. Crossing has a good deal to do with it. It is allowable to refer the variety of types to the more or less commingling of the ancient races, as they are everywhere mingled now. We can hardly deny, however, that the present population partly descended from the troglodytes. The people of Furfooz must still have some representatives in Belgium, especially among the women. Science proves that woman retains the type of the race to which she belongs longer than man. At a later day we shall doubtless succeed in deciphering the origin of the human races. In these researches we must also consider the action of les milieux. Mlle. Royer expressed a disbelief in the unity of the human species. Unfortunately, the inevitable crossing is always obstructing her observations. She absolutely refuses to admit that the white man is Aryan, or at least Asiatic. She hopes, however, some day to obtain a solution of these great problems. How far, madame, your knowledge extends, and how astonishingly you have retained the persistent type of madame la guenon from whom you flatter yourself to have descended! After other discussions concerning the bronze utensils found in various parts of Europe, and the influence of Etruscan art, which extended even to the North, M. Baudre undertook the demonstration of a point singular enough. Primitive man, he said, doubtless possessed the musical faculty, and it is impossible with his knowledge of the flint he daily used that it should not have occurred to him to apply the sonorousness of that stone to some practical use. No one can positively declare this was so, but who can deny it? M. Baudre has constructed an instrument composed [pg 835] of accordant flints—a prehistoric piano—on which he executed a brabançonne that would have excited the envy of the Moncrabeaux. It is neither more nor less insupportable than the modern instrument of torture of which some unideal creature, with bent body and a prey to convulsive jerks, strikes the senseless ivory with his skinny phalanges till it shrieks under the touch.
Of the excursion to Namur we will only allude to what bore on the scientific labors of the Congress; that is, the visit to the Camp of Hastedon. The delightful, cordial reception given us in that pleasant town, the banquet and concert which followed, will not soon be effaced from the memory of the excursionists. The plateau of Hastedon, close to Namur, rests on a solid mass of dolomite, and is surrounded by a bastion composed of fagots calcined—it is not known how, huge boulders, and a thick layer of earth and stones. The Romans occupied it for a certain time, but the parapets that surround it are much more ancient. It is an immense plain, eleven hectares in extent, strewed with flints, both wrought and polished, that came from Spiennes, while those of the caverns of the Lesse came from Champagne. The troglodytes of the Lesse and the people of Spiennes were contemporaries in the age of cut stone, but there was no intercourse between them. During the age of polished stone, on the contrary, the importation of flints from Champagne ceased in the region of the caverns, and the flint of Spiennes was diffused among the plateaux of upper Belgium. The inhabitants of Spiennes extended their former bounds, penetrated to that region, and fortified it. According to M. Dupont, the Camp of Hastedon must have been one of their fortresses.
The final séance of the Congress opened with a very interesting and animated discussion as to the first use of bronze and iron. Where did the bronze come from? M. Oppert thought it of European origin. The Phœnicians went to England for tin rather than to the East. M. Worsaae was convinced it came from Asia, and that a bronze age will be discovered in Egypt. M. Leemans was of the opinion that the iron age preceded the bronze in India and Ceylon. M. Conestabile was inclined to think the Phœnicians obtained their tin from the Caucasus rather than England. M. Franks said they might have found it in Spain and Portugal, and M. Waldemar-Schmidt thought the Egyptians obtained theirs from Africa.
M. de Quatrefages afterwards summed up the character of the Congress of Brussels: it appears from scientific evidence in every direction that certain existing types have an incontestable resemblance to the people of the quaternary period. In the second place, it now seems established that man of the stone age travelled much more than has been supposed.
The close of the session was marked by two occurrences that produced a strong impression on the assembly. The two workmen who so ably assisted M. Dupont in the exploration of the caverns had, at the solicitation of the committee, the décoration ouvrière conferred on them by Messrs. de Quatrefages and Capellini. Then a letter from M. G. Geefs was read, stating that he had made a bust of M. d'Omalius unbeknown to the latter, which he offered as a mark of homage to the Congress. This bust, concealed at the end of the apartment, was uncovered and presented to the venerable president, old in years but youthful in feeling, [pg 836] whose fine noble career M. de Quatrefages retraced in an address sparkling with wit. Then, after some isolated communications, the Congress passed a resolution to hold its seventh meeting at Stockholm, in 1874, under the effective presidency of Prince Oscar of Sweden, and the Congress was declared adjourned.
We cannot better end this report, which I should have liked to make more complete, than by quoting M. Dupont's résumé (a little indefinite, in my opinion) of the labor of the Sixth International Congress of Prehistoric Anthropology and Archæology:
“After the weighty discussions that have taken place at the Congress of Brussels,” says M. le Secrétaire Général, “it is proper to lay before the public the chief problems discussed by the learned assembly. These problems have not all been definitely solved. That was not to be expected, for the result of such scientific meetings is seldom the decision of questions, but rather stating them with clearness and precision. The discussions at such meetings lead to the opening of new paths, and preparing the way, by throwing new light on it, for calm and persevering labor in the study. There alone is it possible to weigh the value of arguments, elucidate obscure points, and arrive at conclusions. In this spirit six principal points have been drawn up: