Figs. 65, 66.—Skull from Cave of Sclaigneaux. (Arnould.)
The crania ([Figs. 65, 66]) are brachy-cephalic (see Table, [p. 199]), and are possessed, according to M. Arnould, of the following characters. The apex of the cranial vault is flattened, probably artificially, and the parietal bosses are largely developed, to which is due the great width of the skull. The surciliary ridges are strongly marked, and the malar bones are prominent. In all these particulars they agree with the broad skulls, as defined by Dr. Thurnam, discovered in the round tumuli of Britain and the sepulchral caves of France.
Fig. 67.—Platycnemic tibia, from Sclaigneaux.
Some of the leg-bones presented the antero-posterior flattening, or platycnemism, observed in the skeletons from the caves of Gibraltar, and in France and Great Britain ([Fig. 67]). It is due, as in those from North Wales, to the anterior expansion of the bone, and not to the posterior, as is the case with those from the cave of Cro-Magnon.
A beautifully chipped arrow-head, with barbs and central tongue for insertion into the shaft, of the same type as one from Chauvaux, implies that these remains belong to the neolithic age. Implements of bone, and a shell perforated for suspension, were also found.
The Evidence of History as to the Peoples of Gaul and Spain.
The extension of this non-Aryan race through France, Spain, and Britain, in ancient times, based solely on the evidence of the human remains, is confirmed by an appeal to the ethnology of Europe within the historic period. In the Iberian peninsula the Basque populations of the west are defined from the Celtic of the east by the Celtiberi inhabiting the modern Castille (see Map, [Fig. 68]). In Gaul the province of Aquitania extended as far north, in Cæsar’s time,[140] as the river Garonne, constituting the modern Gascony, to which was added, in the days of Augustus, the district between that river and the Loire; a change of frontier that was probably due to the predominance of Basque blood in a mixed race in that area similar to the Celtiberi of Castille. The Aquitani were surrounded on every side, except the south, by the Celtæ, extending as far north as the Seine, as far to the east as Switzerland and the plains of Lombardy, and southwards, through the valley of the Rhone and the region of the Volcæ, over the Eastern Pyrenees into Spain. The district round the Phocæan colony of Marseilles was inhabited by Ligurian tribes, who held the region between the river Po and the Gulf of Genoa, as far as the western boundary of Etruria, and who probably extended to the west along the coast of Southern Gaul as far as the Pyrenees.[141] They were distinguished from the Celtæ, not merely by their manners and customs, but by their small stature and dark hair and eyes, and are stated by Pliny and Strabo to have inhabited Spain. They have also left marks of their presence in Central Gaul in the name of the Loire (Ligur), and possibly in Britain in the obscure name of the Lloegrians. They invaded Sicily[142] as the Sikelians, and if the latter be identified with the Sikanians considered by Thucydides[143] and other writers to be of Iberian stock, it will follow that they are a cognate race. Their stature and swarthy complexion, as well as the ancient geographical position conterminous with the Iberic population of Gaul and Spain, confirm this conclusion. The non-Aryan and probably Basque population of Gaul was therefore cut into two portions by a broad band of Celts, which crosses the Eastern Pyrenees, and marks the route by which the Iberian peninsula was invaded.