CHAPTER IV

Although there were one or more other races which influenced the industrial development of western Europe, the Crô-Magnons were certainly dominant, as shown both by the abundance of their skeletal remains and by the wide distribution of their industry and art; the Upper Palæolithic may almost be said to be the period of the Crô-Magnons as the Lower Palæolithic is that of the Neanderthals and the Pre-Neanderthals. Their arrival toward the end of Mousterian times effected a social and industrial change and a race replacement of so profound a nature that it would certainly be legitimate to separate the Upper Palæolithic from the Lower by a break equal to that which separates the former from the Neolithic.(1)

The arrival of the Crô-Magnons and the introduction of the Aurignacian industry are the first events of the prehistory of Europe to which we can assign a date with any degree of confidence; they correspond geologically with the close of the fourth glaciation and the beginning of Postglacial time, the duration of which has been estimated by geologists from evidence of many different kinds, but which brings us, nevertheless, to substantially similar conclusions. It seems that 25,000 years is a conservative estimate for the duration of the Postglacial Period; this is supported by the independent observations of Lyell, Taylor, Penck and Brückner, and Coleman; it is within the estimates made by Chamberlin and Salisbury, Fairchild, Sardeson, and Spencer; it is somewhat larger than the estimates of Gilbert and Upham.[AJ] Thus, with considerable confidence we may record man of the modern type of Homo sapiens as entering western Europe between 25,000 and 30,000 years ago.

The Lower Palæolithic industrial cycle, comprising the Chellean, Acheulean, and Mousterian, seems to have been similar in evolution both around the Mediterranean coasts and in the northern portions of Europe. From the fact that the Crô-Magnons arrived with the Aurignacian industry it would appear that they came through Phœnicia and along the southern coasts of the Mediterranean, through Tunis, into Spain; also perhaps along the northern coasts of the Mediterranean through Italy. Their evolution had probably taken place somewhere on the continent of Asia, for their physical structure is entirely of Asiatic type, and not in the least of African or Ethiopian type; that is, they exhibit no negroid characters whatever. The reason that Breuil considers that the Aurignacian did not come in through central or eastern Europe is that there are no early Aurignacian stations in either region, whereas the Aurignacian is abundantly developed along the Mediterranean coasts, both of Europe and Africa. The passage of the Crô-Magnons along these coasts was, therefore, like the subsequent wave of the true Mediterranean race, dark-haired, long-headed, narrow-faced people, which followed this coast in early Neolithic times, or, again, like the wave of the Arabian or Moslem advance, which pressed forward along the northern coast of Africa and into southwestern Europe.

Some support of this theory of migration along the north coast of Africa is given by the presence of the skeletons of two members of an entirely distinct race, which are commonly known as the 'negroids of Grimaldi' because of their discovery in the Grottes de Grimaldi near Mentone, and because they alone among all the Upper Palæolithic races thus far discovered in Europe display a number of resemblances to the African negroid race. Anatomically they are related neither to the Neanderthals nor to the Crô-Magnons. Their archæologic age appears to be early Aurignacian because they are found immediately above the layer which marks the close of Mousterian time and the last climate favorable to the warm fauna of mammals.

This sunny coast where modern France joins Italy has supplied some of the most valuable records of the racial and industrial transition from the Lower to the Upper Palæolithic. Of the nine Grottes de Grimaldi three at least show evidences of occupation in closing Mousterian times, probably by men of the Neanderthal race, although no skeletal remains of Neanderthals have been found here. Four of the grottos, namely, the Grotte des Enfants, the Grotte de Cavillon, the Barma Grande, and the Baousso da Torre, have yielded altogether the skeletal remains of sixteen individuals, all associated with implements of Aurignacian culture and evidently representing a number of ceremonial burials. Fourteen of these skeletons are attributed by Verneau to the Crô-Magnon race; the other two are the 'negroids of Grimaldi' above referred to. This is, therefore, a prehistoric record of the greatest significance, which we shall now examine more in detail.

Racial Succession along the Ancient Riviera

Where the southern spurs of the Alps descend into the Mediterranean and separate France from Italy we find a limestone promontory, known as the Baoussé Roussé, projecting in a long cliff, beneath which the rocky shore descends abruptly into the sea. Opening toward the south, and at intervals along the base of this cliff are the nine Grottes de Grimaldi. Doubtless the Neanderthals migrated along these shores at a time when the hippopotamus, the straight-tusked elephant (E. antiquus), and Merck's rhinoceros (R. merckii) still abounded as the last representatives of the great African-Asiatic fauna. These hunters of Mousterian times entered the sea-swept floor of the great Grotte du Prince[AK] (Fig. 131), with a ceiling height at that time perhaps of over 80 feet, carrying in their game to the fire-hearths, and leaving Mousterian implements in the accumulating deposits. In the succeeding layers of this grotto the changing forms of animal life demonstrate the effect of the fourth glaciation and the cooling of the climate toward the close of Mousterian times.

The smaller Grotte des Enfants (Fig. 132), which lies to the west of the Prince's Grotto, was apparently occupied at a somewhat more recent period, because the lowest fire-hearths contain, together with the Mousterian implements, remains of Merck's rhinoceros only—apparently the last survivor here, as well as in other parts of western Europe, of the warm African-Asiatic fauna. The hippopotamus and the straight-tusked elephant had either become extinct or had been driven farther south by the time the hunters first occupied this grotto. In the overlying layers of this and several other grottos the fire-hearths contain remains of a rich forest fauna which includes the wild boar, stag, roe-deer, wild horse, wolf, and bear. The first signs of increasing cold in the mountains to the north is the appearance of remains of the chamois and ibex driven from the Alpine heights. Then in still higher layers appears the reindeer, harbinger of the tundra climate.

The Grimaldi Race

Verneau is inclined to regard the Grimaldi as a very ancient race, antedating the Crô-Magnon.(2) He believes that they belong to a new ethnic type which played an important rôle in Europe and enjoyed a wide geographic distribution. There does not, however, seem to be much support for this opinion, because, unlike some other races, no traces of the Grimaldis have been found elsewhere, and it would appear more probable that they were, as their skeletal characters indicate, true negroids which perhaps found their way from Africa but never became established as a race in western Europe.

The type consists of two skeletons found in the Grotte des Enfants by Verneau in 1906. One skeleton is that of a middle-aged woman; the other is that of a youth of sixteen or seventeen. Both are referred to the existing species of man, Homo sapiens. The layer which contained them is on a level two feet lower than any which contained Crô-Magnons, and immediately above the culture layer of Mousterian times.

The Grimaldi characters present a wide contrast to those of the Crô-Magnon. The two known skeletons, of a woman and a youth, are of inferior stature, not exceeding 5 feet 3 inches:

These measurements, however, are only slightly inferior to those of the Crô-Magnon woman and youth, which rise to 5 feet 5 inches. There are many negroid characters in the skull, in the structure of the hip-girdle, and in the proportions of the limbs; there are also some characters in common with the anthropoid apes, namely, the long forearm, the curved thigh-bone, and the marked prognathism, or projection of the tooth row; the face is low and broad, and extremely prognathous; the nose is platyrhine, or broad and flat; the jaw is heavy, with large teeth and without the chin prominence; the head form, like that of the Crô-Magnons, is dolichocephalic and somewhat disharmonic; that is, while the head is long, the face is short and relatively broad. Yet the cranial capacity is relatively high, being estimated at 1,580 c.cm. Unlike the Crô-Magnons, the Grimaldis have a relatively long forearm and a negroid type of pelvis. The proportions of the leg are, however, somewhat similar to those of the leg of the Crô-Magnon, the thigh-bone being short and the shin-bone long, the index being 83.8 per cent. In addition to the long forearm, which approaches in form that of the living anthropoid apes, there is a curved femur, distinctly of anthropoid-ape character.

"In its body and tooth characters," observes Verneau,(3) "this negroid race in many respects shows a greater resemblance to the anthropoid apes than does the Neanderthal race." He continues: "The fact remains that at a very remote period of the Pleistocene there existed in Europe, beside the Neanderthal race, a type of man that in many of his cephalic characters, in the structure of his pelvis, and in his limb proportions showed striking analogies to the negro of to-day. In their remarkable proportions they exaggerate some of the peculiarities of the recent negroes; the teeth resemble those of the Australian types. There is evidence of the establishment and spread of the Grimaldi race throughout western Europe, namely, in cases of partial reversion to this type among the skeletal remains of the Neolithic Age, the Bronze Age, and the early Iron Age in Brittany, Switzerland, and northern Italy. Extreme prognathism is the characteristic that most frequently appears, and in some instances there is the broad nose, with the same osteological peculiarities that mark the Grimaldi type. In every instance these individuals show dolichocephaly, nearly always combined with a short, broad face. Until the discovery of the Grimaldi type we were at a loss to explain the existence of these individuals among a population from which they differed so radically."

Against this opinion of Verneau we should weigh the entire absence of any trace of this Grimaldi race in any part of western Europe among all the burials and other human remains of Upper Palæolithic age known at the present time. Setting aside any such records which are of doubtful authenticity or difficult to diagnose on account of their fragmentary nature, there remains a number of human fossils representing at least ninety individuals discovered at over fifteen widely distributed localities. None of these shows any features of the Grimaldi race.

In describing the Grimaldi skeletons, Keith(4) agrees that they are of a mixed or negroid type; the shallow, projecting incisor part of the upper jaw and the characters of the chin are features of recent negroid races; so are the wide opening of the nose, the prominent cheek-bones, the flat and short face. Yet the bridge of the nose is not flat as in negroes, but rather prominent as in Europeans, and the capacity of the skull in the woman (1,375 c.cm.) is ample. In the boy the teeth are large and of the negro type; he bears a striking resemblance to the woman, and his cranial capacity (1,580 c.cm.) indicates a distinctly modern brain; the prominences of the forehead do not meet across the median line as in certain negroids and in the Neanderthals. Keith concludes that the Grimaldi people represent an intermediate type in the evolution of the typical white and black races.

MAIN FEATURES OF THE ENTIRE UPPER PALÆOLITHIC HISTORY

Having now considered the opening of the Upper Palæolithic, also the single appearance of the Grimaldi race of which no further trace is known, it is desirable to briefly review the entire Upper Palæolithic history before we attempt to follow in detail its successive phases beginning with the appearance of the Aurignacian industry.

There is evidence of various kinds that the Crô-Magnons arrived in western Europe, bringing in their Aurignacian industry, while the Neanderthals were still in possession of the country and practising their Mousterian industry. Thus in the valley of the Somme, Commont believes he has recognized a level of flints, exhibiting the primitive Aurignacian 'retouch' of Dordogne, but occurring beneath a late Mousterian level. Additional evidence of a contact between the industries of these two races is found at the stations of La Ferrassie, of Les Bouffia, and especially of the Abri Audit, where there is a distinct transition period, in which the characteristic types of the late Mousterian are found intermixed with a number of flints suggesting the early Aurignacian;(5) here it would appear that the development of the Aurignacian is partly a local evolution, and not an invasion of wholly new types of implements. Breuil(6) suggests that these mixed layers may perhaps be explained by the supposition that we have here degenerate or modified Mousterian tools, more or less influenced by contact with the Aurignacian industry of the Crô-Magnon race.

THE STONE IMPLEMENTS CHARACTERISTIC OF LOWER AND UPPER PALÆOLITHIC TIMES

* = twice mentioned (in different classifications).

+ or ++ denotes an unusual or culminating development.

Again, the burial customs of the Neanderthals were in many respects followed by the Crô-Magnons; they chose, in fact, the same kind of burial sites, namely, at the entrances of grottos or in proximity to the shelters. Some degree of ceremony must have marked these burials, for with the remains were interred implements of industry and warfare together with offerings of food. The Neanderthal burials were with the body fully extended; the two burials of the Grimaldi race were with the limbs in a flexed position and tightly bound to the body, probably with skin garments or thongs. The Crô-Magnon burials are either with the body extended, as in the Grottes de Grimaldi, or with the limbs flexed, as in the Aurignacian burial of Laugerie Haute.

THE BONE IMPLEMENTS APPEARING AT THE CLOSE OF THE LOWER PALÆOLITHIC AND HIGHLY CHARACTERISTIC OF THE UPPER PALÆOLITHIC

* = twice mentioned (in different classifications).

+ or ++ denotes an unusual or culminating development.

Whether the Neanderthals were exterminated entirely or whether they were driven out of the country is not known; the encounter was certainly between a very superior people, both physically and mentally, who possibly had the use of the bow and arrow, and a very inferior and somewhat degenerate people that had been already reduced physically and perhaps numerically by the severe climatic conditions of the fourth glaciation. The Neanderthals were dispossessed of all their dwelling-places and industrial stations by this new and vigorous race, for at no less than eighteen points the Aurignacian immediately succeeds upon the Mousterian industry and in a few instances Crô-Magnon burials occur very near the Neanderthal burial sites.

In the racial replacements of savage as well as of historic peoples the men are often killed and the women spared and taken into families of the warriors, but no evidence has thus far been found that even the Neanderthal women were spared or allowed to remain in the country, because in none of the burials of Aurignacian times is there any evidence of the crossing or admixture of the Crô-Magnons and the Neanderthals.