Cave Hunting / Researches on the evidence of caves respecting the early inhabitants of Europe

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.

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 Sicily142 as the Sikelians, and if the latter be identified with the Sikanians considered by Thucydides143 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.

The ancient population of Sardinia is stated by Pausanias to be of Libyan extraction, and to bear a strong resemblance to the Iberians in physique and in habits of life, while that of Corsica is described by Seneca as Ligurian and Iberian. The ancient Libyans are represented at the present day by the Berber and Kabyle tribes which are, if not identical with, at all events cognate with the Basques. We may therefore infer that these two islands were formerly occupied by this non-Aryan race, as well as the adjacent continents of Northern Africa and Southern Europe.

The Basque Population the Oldest.

The relative antiquity of these two races in Europe may be arrived at by this distribution. The Basques, Sikani or Ligurian, are the oldest inhabitants, in their respective districts, known to the historian; while the Celts appear as invaders, pressing southwards and westwards on the populations already in possession, flooding over the Alps and under Brennus sacking Rome, and by their union with the vanquished in Spain constituting the Celtiberi. We may therefore be tolerably certain that the Basques held France and Spain before the invasion of the Celts, and that the non-Aryan peoples were cut asunder, and certain parts of them left—Ligurians, Sikani, and in part Sardinians and Corsicans—as ethnological islands, marking, so to speak, an ancient Basque non-Aryan continent which had been submerged by the Celtic populations advancing steadily westwards.

At the time of the Roman conquest of Gaul, the Belgæ were pressing on the Celts, just as the latter pressed the Basques, the Seine and the Marne forming their southern boundary, and in their turn being pushed to the west by the advance of the Germans in the Rhine provinces. Thus we have the oldest population, or Basque, invaded by the Celts, the Celts by the Belgæ, and these again by the Germans; their relative positions stamping their relative antiquity in Europe.

The Population of Britain.

The Celtic and Belgic invasion of Gaul repeated itself, as might be expected, in Britain. Just as the Celts pushed back the Iberian population of Gaul as far south as Aquitania, and swept round it into Spain, so they crossed over the Channel and overran the greater portion of Britain, until the Silures, identified by Tacitus144 with the Iberians, were left only in those fastnesses that formed subsequently a bulwark for the Brit-Welsh against the English invaders. And just as the Belgæ pressed on the rear of the Celts as far as the Seine, so they followed them into Britain, and took possession of the “Pars Maritima,”145 or southern counties. The unsettled condition of the country at the time of Cæsar’s invasion was, probably, due to the struggle then going on between Celts and Belgæ.

The evidence offered by history as to the distribution of these races confirms that which has been arrived at by the examination of the caves and tumuli. In the one case the Basque peoples are merely known in a fragmentary condition in Britain, Gaul, and Sicily, while in the other those fragments are joined together in such a way as to show that, in the neolithic age, they extended uninterrupedly through Western Europe, from the Pillars of Hercules in the south to Scotland in the north, before they were dispossessed by their broad-headed enemies. It is impossible to define with precision their ethnological relation to the non-Aryan inhabitants of Italy and the coasts of the Mediterranean, such as the Etruscans and Tyrrhenians. I am, however, inclined to hold that they are all branches of the same race of “Melanochroi,” differing far less from each other than the Celtic from the Scandinavian branch of the Aryan family.146

Basque Element in present British and French Populations.

This non-Aryan blood is still to be traced in the dark-haired, black-eyed, small, oval-featured peoples in our own country in the region of the Silures, where the hills have afforded shelter to the Basque populations from the invaders.147 The small swarthy Welshman of Denbighshire is in every respect, except dress and language, identical with the Basque inhabitant of the Western Pyrenees, at Bagnères de Bigorre.

The small dark-haired people of Ireland,148 and especially those to the west of the Shannon, according to Dr. Thurnam and Professor Huxley, are also of Iberian derivation, and singularly enough there is a legendary connection between that island and Spain. The human remains from the chambered tombs as well as the riverbeds prove that the non-Aryan population spread over the whole of Ireland as well as the whole of Britain. The main mass of the Irish population is undoubtedly Celtic, crossed with Danish, Norse, and English blood.

The Basque element in the population of France is at the present time centered in the old province of Aquitaine, in which the jet-black hair and eyes, and swarthy complexion, strike the eye of the traveller, now as in the days of Strabo,149 and form a vivid contrast with the brown hair and grey eyes of the inhabitants of Celtica and Belgica (see Map, Fig. 68). If Fig. 68 be compared with the map published by Dr. Broca (“Mémoires d’Anthropologie,” t. i. p. 330), which shows at a glance the average complexion prevailing in each department, and the relative number of exemptions per 1,000 conscripts, on account of their not coming up to the standard of height (1·56 metre = 5 feet 1½ inches), it will be seen that the only swarthy people outside the boundary of Aquitaine constitute five ethnological islands. Of these Brittany is by far the largest, probably because its fastnesses afforded a shelter to the Basques, who were being driven to the south-west. The department of the Meuse, in the north, and those of Tarn and Arriège, in the south, are also sundered from the main body, while those of the Upper and Lower Alps present us with the descendants of the ancient Ligurian tribes.

The people with dark-brown hair, considered by Dr. Broca to be the result of the intermingling of a dark with a fair race, are scattered about through Aquitaine, and occur only in two departments in northern Celtica. The fair people, on the other hand, are massed in northern Celtica and Belgica. The relation of complexion to stature may be gathered from the following table of exemptions per 1,000 for each department:—

From this table it is evident that the swarthy people are the smallest and the fair the tallest, the intermediate shades being the result of fusion between the two extremes.

The distribution therefore of the small swarthy Basque, and tall fair Celtic and Belgic races in France at the present time, corresponds essentially with that which we might have expected from the evidence both of history and of the neolithic caves and tombs.150

When we consider the many invasions of France, and the oscillations to and fro of peoples, the persistence of the Basque population is very remarkable. It is not a little strange that the type should be so slightly altered by intermarriage with the conquering races.

Whence came the Basques?

From what region did the Basques invade Europe? M. Broca, from their identity with the Kabyles and Berbers, holds that they entered Europe from northern Africa, spreading over Spain, and passing over the Pyrenees into southern France. It seems, however, to me, from their range as far north as Scotland, and at least as far to the east as Belgium, that they travelled by the same route that the Celtic, Belgic, and Germanic tribes travelled long ages afterwards, coming from the east and pushing their way to the west: and that while one section chose this route, another mastered northern Africa, following the same westward direction as the Saracens. On this hypothesis this great pre-Aryan migration would start from the central plateau of Asia, from which all the successive invaders of Europe have swarmed off.

This view of the eastern derivation of the Basque peoples is confirmed by the examination of the breeds of domestic animals which they possessed. The Bos longifrons, the sheep, and the goat are derived from wild stocks that are now to be found only in central Asia; and the dog and breed of swine with small canines were also probably imported after they had become the servants of man in the east.151

The Celtic and Belgic Brachy-cephali.

The occurrence of broad-skulls in the tumuli in this country, and in caves and tumuli in France, proves that the Basque peoples were invaded during the neolithic age. And since Dr. Thurnam has shown that they are identical in form with Celtic and Belgic skulls,152 it follows that one or the other of these, probably the Celtic or the older, was in possession of portions of Britain, Ireland, and Gaul at that remote time. It is of course conceivable that non-Celtic races, physically allied to the Celts or Belgæ, are represented by the human remains in question; but in that case they have left no mark behind by which they can be identified. And the supposition is rendered improbable to the last degree by the fact, that the older or conquered race—the Basque—still survives, in the area under consideration, the invasions and vicissitudes which it has undergone. A fortiori, would their conquerors have had a still greater chance of survival, in the fastnesses which are offered by these countries. It is therefore reasonable to presume that the broad-headed peoples in the neolithic caves and tombs are represented by the Celts, and possibly, though not probably, in part by the Belgæ, rather than by the equally broad-headed Wends, Sclavonians, and Fins, which are not known by the historian to have settled in Gaul or in Britain. The successive invasions of Europe have been invariably from the east to the west, so far as we have any certain knowledge; and it is most improbable that Wends, Fins, or Sclaves should have occupied these countries and subsequently have retreated eastwards against the current of the Celtic, Belgic, and Germanic invasions.

The Celtæ may, therefore, be inferred to have occupied Gaul and Britain in the ages of polished stone, bronze, and of iron, their encroachment on the non-Aryan peoples being regulated by their strength, and the amount of pressure on their rear. The Belgæ probably were not known in Gaul until the later portion of the iron age, and were of small importance as compared with the Celts, whose arms were felt alike in Greece, Italy, Spain, and Asia Minor.

The Celts were a tall, fair-haired, blue-eyed race (Xanthochroi), contrasting strongly with the Basque “Melanochroi”, and in those particulars agreeing with the Germans.153

The Ancient German Race.

The Germans, in the days of Cæsar, were advancing on the Belgæ in the Rhine provinces, and on the Helvetii in Switzerland, and are recognized by Tacitus,154 in Britain as the red-haired, tall inhabitants of Caledonia. Subsequently they spread over the west and south of Europe, as Goths, Franks, Scandinavians, English and Normans; in this country sweeping the Brit-Welsh into the hilly fastnesses of Wales, making settlements on many points of the coasts of Ireland, and leaving behind them, to this day, a considerable infusion of German blood in the Celtic and Basque populations. They were, unlike the present inhabitants of North Prussia and southern and middle Germany, a dolicho-cephalic people, their length of head being due, according to Gratiolet, to a frontal instead of an occipital development, which causes the long-headedness of the Basques. The Anglo-Saxon skull is defined by Dr. Thurnam as prognathous, with large facial bones, and with a cephalic index averaging ·75. And these characters are equally to be found in the Gothic, Frankish, and Scandinavian crania.

General Conclusions.

In this outline of the ethnology of Gaul and Britain, it will be seen that two out of the three ethnical elements (if the Belgic be classed with the Celtic), of which the present population is composed, can be recognized in the neolithic users of caves and builders of chambered tombs. A non-Aryan race either identical or cognate with the Basque is the earliest traceable in these areas in the neolithic age, and it probably arrived in Europe by the same route as the Celtic and Germanic, passing westwards from the plains of central Asia.

There is no evidence of Spain having been peopled from northern Africa, the identity of the Berber and Kabyle with the Basque being due to their being descended from the same non-Aryan stock in possession of southern and western Europe, and northern Africa. They are to be looked upon as cousins rather than as connected by descent in a right line.

The Basque race was probably in possession of Europe for a long series of ages, before hordes either identical or cognate with the Celts gradually crept westward over Germany into Gaul, Spain, and Britain, driving away, or absorbing, the inhabitants of the regions which they conquered.