I. In giving the name of a locality justly celebrated in anthropology to this group of races, and in applying it especially to the two first, M. Hamy and I have been chiefly actuated by the desire to honour the long and conscientious labours, which have led to the discovery of quaternary man in Belgium. It is scarcely necessary to remind my readers that it is due, after Schmerling, to M. Dupont, who during seven years, from 1864 to 1871, has excavated more than sixty caverns or rock-shelters, from which he has obtained, independently of his human fossils, about forty thousand animal bones and eighty thousand stones cut by the hand of man. Therace of Grenellewas discovered by M. Émile Martin, in 1867, in the gravel-pits opened in the neighbourhood of Paris, and afterwards characterised by M. Hamy. Therace of La Truchèrewas found by M. Legrand de Mercey in a bank of the Seille, near to the locality of which it bears the name.
II. Considered from the point of view of the general form of the skull, these four types arrange themselves in an almost regular manner. The cephalic index 79·31 places the first Furfooz race among mesaticephali; the second Furfooz race becomes sub-brachycephalic by its index 81·39; that of Grenelle, whose index rises to 83·53 in the man, and 83·68 in the woman, approaches very nearly to brachycephaly properly so called. This is also the case with that of La Truchère, the index of which is 84·32.
Let us at once proceed to consider this latter, which, at present represented in quaternary times only by a head, is,on that account alone, far less interesting than its companions. The skull and face are here remarkable for a dysharmony as striking as that of the Cro-Magnon head; but the contrast is inverse. The skull, in this case, is broad and short, while the face is long. The face view of the former presents a very marked pentagonal appearance. The bones are all strongly developed in the transverse direction, with the exception of the inferior half of the coronal which slants rapidly inward so as to form a narrow forehead. The whole face is relatively small and narrow. The nose is very large and long; the massive cheek bones are slightly prominent, and the superior maxillary bones are slightly prognathous.
The two races of Furfooz, like that of Grenelle, have a certain family resemblance, which does not exclude the existence of distinctive characters. Thus, in the mesaticephalic race of Furfooz the antero-posterior arc of the skull produces above the small but well marked superciliary ridges, a very retreating forehead, and is continued with no further inflexion than a slight depression at the sutures. The face is broad and the index almost the same as that of the race of Cro-Magnon. On account of the shortening of the skull, the head is, however,harmonic, instead of beingdysharmonicas in the troglodytes of Périgord. A slightly concave, but sufficiently prominent nose, square orbits, slightly marked canine fossæ, and an almost orthognathous superior maxillary bone complete this face, the bony framework of which has a somewhat finely cut and delicate appearance.
In this sub-brachycephalic race of the same locality, the forehead rises in a somewhat perpendicular line to the level of the frontal eminences. The arc then becomes suddenly flattened as far as the first third of the parietal bones where the curve becomes more inflected and is continued with almost unbroken regularity to the foramen magnum of the occipital. We meet with almost the same index in the face; but the orbits and the face are longer, the caninefossæ form deep indentations, the superior maxillary bone projects forward, the teeth follow the same direction, and the prognathism is very striking.
In the race of Grenelle, the very prominent glabella and full superciliary ridges give a slightly oblique direction to the base of the forehead. But the arc soon rises and is regularly developed without either projection or depression. The skull, viewed from the face, appears as well proportioned as in profile. The face harmonises with it. The cheek bones are well developed and prominent; the canine fossæ high, but not deep; the orbits approach the square form; the bones of the nose are concave and sufficiently prominent. Finally, the maxillary bone and the teeth are equally prognathous, but less so than in the preceding race.
III. The men of Grenelle, and still more those of Furfooz, were of small stature. The former reached a mean of 1·62 m. (5ft. 3·8 in.), but the latter descended to 1·53 m. (5ft. 0·2 in.) This is almost exactly the mean height of the Lapps. Yet this reduced stature would neither exclude the vigour nor the agility necessary to savage populations. The bones of the limbs and trunk are strong, and the eminences and depressions of their surface indicate a very marked muscular development.
With the exception of this general appearance of strength superior to that which is generally met with, the skeleton of the men of Furfooz and Grenelle strongly resembles that of men of the present day. The tibia in particular assumes the prismatic triangular form which we are accustomed to observe in them. We remark, nevertheless, the appearance of a character which we have as yet only noticed in the cavern of L’Homme-Mort, where we considered it to be a sign of crossing. The olecranon depression is often perforated in the races now under discussion. In Belgium M. Dupont found this disposition to exist in the men of the Lesse in the proportion of 30 per cent. M. Hamy carries it to 28 per cent, in the fossil man of Grenelle, and to 4·66 per cent. only in the French of the present day.
IV. The races of Furfooz, coming after those whose history we have just sketched, must have come in contact, and sometimes have formed connections with them. The clearest demonstration of this fact is at Solutré, where, side by side with Cro-Magnon skulls, two heads were found belonging to the race of Grenelle. Intellectual and social development must have progressed almost equally among men united into a single tribe.
Our brachycephali have, however, had their special centres of population where we can examine them in their home. The researches of M. Dupont have been chiefly devoted to Belgium and the valley of the Lesse. To give an idea of what the men of Furfooz were, we need do no more than reproduce an abridged account of all that the learned explorer of these caverns has said upon the subject.
V. The men of the Lesse, like those of the Vézère, inhabited caverns. One of their complete stations comprised the grotto where they lived, and a funeral grotto. M. Dupont found them almost in juxtaposition at Furfooz, where theTrou des Nutonspresented all the characters of a human habitation, and theTrou du Frontalthose of a place of sepulture. These two localities alone would have furnished many materials for the history of these ancient populations. Nevertheless theTrou de Chaleuxexcels them in this respect. It was long inhabited by man, who left there a considerable accumulation of that refuse which is now turned to such good account by science. The roof one day fell in; the inhabitants escaped, leaving all that was buried in their dwelling. Thus, when this heap of rubbish came to be disturbed by the pick-axe, all was found just as it had been left at the moment of the catastrophe, and it is with good reason that the Grotto of Chaleux has been called a little quaternary Pompeii.
The man of Chaleux chiefly employed flint and reindeer horn to supply his several wants. The former was used for the greater number of his stock of implements; but he gave himself little trouble in varying or perfecting the form.Narrow, elongated blades cut with a single blow upon one side, with two or three upon the opposite face, and what are called knives, seem to be the model from which all the implements are worked. Notched upon one edge they becamesaws; rounded and recut at one extremity they were transformed intoscrapers, well adapted for scraping and taking the hair off skins; tapered and chipped to a point, they furnishedbodkins, piercers, etc. As for reindeer horn, it was divided into pieces from 10 to 15 centimetres (3·9-5·9 inches) long, and then shaped so as to serve for lances or javelins. They may possibly have sometimes received a point of flint. But M. Dupont assures us that there are no grounds for supposing that the bow and arrow were in use among these troglodytes.
The arms of the tribe of Chaleux, were then much inferior to those of the Vézère or of Solutré. It still, however, hunted large game, and knew also how to obtain the small. Its ancient dwelling-place has furnished the remains of numerous horses, several oxen, some reindeer, sixteen foxes, five wild boars, three chamois, three aurochs, one brown bear, one Saïga antelope, etc.
The bones also of the hare, squirrel, water-rat and Norwegian rat, have been found here; the remains of several birds, amongst others those of the ptarmigan; and remains of fresh water fish. The fauna of the Trou des Nutons is almost identical, but the proportion of species is sometimes inverted. A much smaller number of horses and much greater number of wild boars have been discovered there. Here again, as in the stations of the Cro-Magnon race, the larger species are scarcely represented by more than the bones of the head and limbs, all those containing marrow having been carefully broken up.
Like the preceding race, that of Furfooz made use of the skins of slain animals for clothing. This is proved by the bone needles found at Chaleux. But they are here much ruder in form than those of La Madeleine and other similar stations. Short and thick, they might be taken forsmall bodkins were it not for the eye with which they are pierced.
VI. The Belgian troglodytes were, from many points of view, far behind those of Périgord and Mâconnais. The monuments of their industry are much inferior to all that we have seen amongst their predecessors, and they show no indication of the artistic aptitudes so remarkable in the man of the Vézère. They surpass him however, in one essential point; they had invented, or received from elsewhere, the art of manufacturing a rude kind of pottery, of which M. Dupont has found the remains in all the stations which he has explored, and obtained in theTrou du Frontalfragments in sufficient number to restore the vase of which they had once formed part.
This, and some other facts, which it would take too long to discuss here, have led some of the most competentsavants, amongst others MM. Cartailhac and Cazalis de Fondouce, to regard the Trou du Frontal and the other contemporary stations as belonging to the neolithic stone period, and not to the quaternary epoch.
But the character of the fauna discovered in the grottoes of Chaleux and Furfooz makes it impossible in our opinion to accept this opinion, which rests chiefly upon archæological considerations. To refer the age of polished stone to an epoch when the chamois, bouquetin, and Saïga antelope lived in Belgium with the Norwegian rat and the ptarmigan, would be making it very distant. This question may perhaps call for further study; but the juxtaposition of these species in the neighbourhood of Dinant is, in our opinion, a proof that the quaternary period had not then drawn to a close.
VII. The troglodytes of Belgium painted the face and perhaps the body, like those of Périgord. The ornaments in use at Chaleux and Furfooz were almost the same as those which we have found in the south of France. We never, however, find amongst them any object borrowed from marine fauna. This is a curious fact, as the man of the Lesse journeyed in search of hisjewels, as well as of therough material for his implements and arms much greater distances than that which separated him from the sea.
In fact, the principal ornaments of the men of the Lesse were fossil shells. Some, it is true, were obtained from the Devonian rocks in their vicinity; but the greater part came from a considerable distance, chiefly from Champagne and from Grignon near Versailles. The flints, which our troglodytes used in such great numbers, were obtained, not from Hainault or the province of Liège, but almost entirely from Champagne. There are some even which could only have been collected in Touraine, on the banks of the Loire. Judging from the localities of these different objects, we might conclude that the known world of the troglodytes of the Lesse scarcely extended in a northerly direction for 13 to 25 miles, whilst to the south it stretched to a distance of 250 to 300 miles.
There is something very strange in this fact, of which, however, M. Dupont seems to have given what is, at least, a very plausible explanation. He holds that two populations, perhaps two races, were placed in juxtaposition in the countries in question during the quaternary period. There must have existed between them one of those many instances of, we may say, instinctive hatred similar to that which prevails between the Red-Skins and the Esquimaux. Encircled on the north and the east by their enemies, who occupied Hainault, the aborigines of the Lesse could only extend towards the south, and, through the Ardennes, communicate with the basins of the Seine and the Loire.
But did they themselves undertake the long and difficult journeys, by which alone they could procure the shells which they used for ornaments, and the immense quantity of flint which they worked in their caverns? We do not hesitate to assert with M. Dupont that nothing is less probable. Everything, on the contrary, proves that they obtained their supplies by means of a veritable commerce, organised in a regular manner and upon a large scale; whether by the existence of populations devoted to this form of industry, of which thereare several examples known to us in the present day; or by the shells and flints passing from hand to hand through successive exchanges, and reaching at length the banks of the Lesse. We cannot explain in any other way the abundance of foreign flints at Chaleux, Furfooz, etc., the prodigality with which they were used, and the evident carelessness displayed in the preservation of tools which had been manufactured from them.
VIII. In direct opposition to the men of Cro-Magnon, those of Furfooz appear to have been eminently pacific. M. Dupont has not discovered either in their grottoes or burial-places any warlike arms, and he applies to them Ross’s remarks upon the Esquimaux of Baffin’s Bay, who did not understand what was meant by war.
In the sepulchral grotto of Le Frontal, where the tribe of Les Nutons buried their dead, a number of objects have been found, as at Cro-Magnon, proving the existence of a belief in another life. They consisted of a number of perforated shells, ornaments in spar, flat pieces of sandstone traced with sketches, the vase which we have mentioned above, and some selected flint implements. All these objects are, moreover, of the same nature as those in the Trou des Nutons. It is clear that they had been laid in the sepulchral vault under the impression that they would serve to supply the wants of the deceased in the new existence which was opening before them.
Another fact, upon which M. Dupont has with justice insisted, adds to the probability arising from various considerations, of our being right in attributing to these quaternary men a kind of religion more or less analogous to Fetishism. In the Trou de Chaleux, a mammoth’s ulna was placed by the side of a hearth upon a slab of sandstone. Now the mammoth no longer existed in Belgium at the close of the age of the reindeer, and this bone must have been found in the alluvium of the preceding age. It had doubtless been the cause of an error which may be observed even at the present day, and had been looked upon as having belongedto a giant. The place of honour which was allotted to it in the dwelling of the troglodytes seems to intimate that it had become an object of veneration.
IX. Very few remains of the two races of Furfooz and that of Grenelle, have been discovered in other quaternary deposits than those which have just been mentioned. The former are, however, represented in the basins of the Somme and the Aude; the latter has been met with at two or three points in the basin of the Seine. We have seen that it existed at Solutré, and the skull of Nagy-Sap in Hungary must probably be referred to it. These facts are sufficient to show that since the glacial epoch the races in question have occupied an extensive area.
In the neolithic age, we find the mesaticephali of Furfooz extending from the Var and Hérault to Gibraltar; the sub-brachycephali are represented from Verdun to Boulogne-sur-mer, and to Camp-Long from Saint-Césaire; they intermingled with the ancient inhabitants of Cabeço d’Arruda in Portugal.
The brachycephalic race of Grenelle, has, however, left the most distinct traces. It has been discovered in France in several dolmens, and in the Round Barrows in England. In Denmark it constitutes the brachycephalic type of Eschricht, and in Sweden forms a dozen of the total number of the skulls found in dolmens by Retzius and his successors.
The intervention of these different races in the formation of existing races is equally evident. The exact demonstration of the fact is, however, often difficult. The crossing which took place between groups placed in such close contact with each other, more or less confused the types. Other brachycephalic types, amongst others the Celtic race, such as it has been described by M. Broca, came to add to the confusion. Nevertheless, when visiting the valley of the Lesse, several members of the Congress of prehistoric Anthropology recognised skulls and faces as bearing in the clearest manner, the distinctive marks of the local fossil races, and these traces are still more frequent in the rural population which supplies the markets of Antwerp.
It is the race of Grenelle, again, which reappears most persistently in living populations. The numerous Parisian skulls in the Paris Museum present several examples of this fact. The type is, however, very rarely found pure, a fact, which is probably the result of two causes. On the one hand, the new conditions of existence imposed upon the quaternary races by change of climate, must have caused an alteration in some of their characteristics. On the other hand, fresh elements, differing but slightly from the fossil element, have been blended with it. If the skulls of Grenelle are compared, as they have been by M. Hamy, with Lapp skulls, we find that from the extent of the horizontal arc, from the length of the antero-posterior and transverse diameters, and from the cephalic indices, the former must be placed almost exactly half-way between the two great known orders of Lapp skulls. We observe indeed, certain differences between them. For example, the cranial vault is more flattened in the Lapp than in the man of Grenelle; but, on the whole, the analogies are far greater in number than the differences.
The elder Retzius, Sven Nilsson, Eschricht, and others, had already recognised, by means of their investigations of the ancient burials of their country, the great extension of an ancient brachycephalic race, which they identified with the true Lapps. M. Schaafhausen, at the last Stockholm Congress, brought forward another example in support of this opinion.
After considering these facts, M. Hamy and I have been led to admit aLapp-like type, to which, with the race of Grenelle, a great number of populations scattered through time, and extending over nearly the whole of Europe, may be referred. In the Dauphiné Alps particularly, this type is represented in an almost pure state. A curious collection of skulls in the possession of M. Hoël leaves no room for doubt on this point. We have then confirmed, while giving it greater precision and tracing it to an earlier period, one of those general views, for which anthropology owes so much to the Scandinavian savants.
X. Thus, the races of Furfooz and that of Grenelle, the last to appear in the quaternary epoch, came in contact during the glacial ages with the dolichocephalic races which had preceded them. In certain respects they have become amalgamated with them; in others, they have preserved their autonomy; and they have shared the same fate. They also experienced that change of soil and climate, which we have seen causing such trouble to the rising societies of the Cro-Magnon race; they also witnessed a gradual change in the conditions of existence; and the results of these changes have affected them in the manner which we have already pointed out.
A certain number of tribes spread northwards, following the reindeer and other animal species which they had been accustomed to regard as necessary to their existence; they emigrated in latitude. Others from the same motive emigrated in altitude, accompanying the chamois and bouquetin into the mountain chains, which had been liberated by the melting of glaciers. Others, again, remained stationary. The two first groups were free for a much longer time from the influence of ethnical mixture. The tribes composing the third soon found themselves in the presence of brachycephalic and dolichocephalic immigrants of the polished stone period, and were easily subjugated and absorbed by them.
XI. On their arrival in Europe, the men of the polished stone period did not meet only with those races which we have been discussing. They came in contact with all the quaternary races. This is proved by many of the facts already mentioned; and is proved merely by the magnificent collection of skulls and skeletons collected by M. de Baye from the sepulchral grottoes of the Marne. With the exception of the Canstadt type, all those which we have just described seem to have met together in this remarkable locality. Even that of La Truchère is represented by a head almost as strongly characterised as that of the Seille. The foundation of this neolithic population still belonged, however, to a newly arrived type. It is scarcelynecessary to add that, whether old or recent, all these races have intermingled, and that the crossing is betrayed sometimes by the fusion, and sometimes by the juxtaposition, of characteristics.
Either by infiltration or conquest, new races mingled with the preceding, before even the arrival of the Aryans. The latter spread to the western extremities of the continent, leaving extensive regions on the north and the south, where their predecessors continued to exist. Then followed historic invasions. It is from the mixture of all these elements brought together by war, and fused by the experiences of peace, that our European societies have been formed.
XII. Man has been the sole essential agent in the formation of fresh ethnical groupings. From the earliest times of the polished stone period, land and climate have remained unaltered in our western world. European man has then been at liberty to obey the laws of his evolution, to found, modify, or destroy his associations and his societies, to traverse the ages of bronze and iron as well as historic times, without having to battle with those invincible forces, which perhaps arrested the development of the hunters of Cro-Magnon.
In what degree does the anthropological past of the rest of the world resemble that of Europe? Science will some day, undoubtedly, answer this question, but we could now only form conjectures. It is wiser to abstain, content with having deciphered in less than half a century, almost a whole chapter of that prehistoric and palæontological history of man, the existence of which was not even suspected by our fathers.