Fig. 16. Outline tracing and sectional view of the Gibraltar (Forbes Quarry) skull. The various angles are used for comparative purposes. (From Sera.)

The Forbes Quarry skull is clearly of Neanderthaloid type as regards the formation of the brain-case; in respect of the face it resembles in general the skull from La Chapelle. But in respect of the estimated capacity of the brain-case (estimated at 1100 c.c.), the Forbes Quarry skull falls far short of both those other examples. Moreover the cranial base assigns to it an extremely lowly position. The individual is supposed by some to have been of the female sex, but there is no great certainty about this surmise. The enormous size of the eye-cavities and of the opening of the nose confer a very peculiar appearance upon the face, and are best seen in the full-face view. Some other features of the skull will be considered in the concluding chapter, when its relation to skulls of the Neanderthal type will be discussed in detail.

Andalusia, Spain.

In 1910, Colonel Willoughby Verner discovered several fragments of a human skeleton in a cave in the Serranía de Ronda. These fragments have been presented to the Hunterian Museum. They seem to be absolutely mineralised. Though imperfect, they indicate that their possessor was adult and of pygmy stature. The thigh-bone in particular is of interest, for an upper fragment presents a curious conformation of the rounded prominence called the greater trochanter. In this feature, and in regard to the small size of the head of the bone, the femur is found to differ from most other ancient fossil thigh-bones, and from those of modern human beings, with the exception of some pygmy types, viz. the dwarf-like cave-dwellers of Aurignac (compared by Pruner-Bey in 1868 to the Bushmen), the aborigines of the Andaman islands, and the aboriginal Bushmen of South Africa. A full description of the bones has not been published, but will probably appear very shortly.

Grimaldi (Mentone Caves).

Among the numerous human skeletons yielded by the caves of Mentone, two were discovered at a great depth in a cave known as the ‘Grotte des Enfants.’ The excavations were set on foot by the Prince of Monaco, and these particular skeletons have been designated the ‘Grimaldi’ remains.

Their chief interest (apart from the evidence as to a definite interment having taken place) consists in the alleged presence of ‘negroid’ characters. The skeletons are those of a young man (cf. [Fig. 17]), and an aged woman. The late Professor Gaudry examined the jaw of the male skeleton. He noted the large dimensions of the teeth, the prognathism, the feeble development of the chin, and upon such grounds pointed out the similarity of this jaw to those of aboriginal natives of Australia. Some years later Dr Verneau, in describing the same remains, based a claim to (African) negroid affinity on those characters, adding thereto evidence drawn from a study of the limb bones. In both male and female alike, the lower limbs are long and slender, while the forearm and shin-bones are relatively long when compared respectively with the arm and the thigh-bones.