Cave Hunting

HIC DOLICHO-CEPHALI

he Dolicho-cephali of the Iberian Peninsula-Gibraltar-Spain.-Cueva de los Murcièlagos.-The Woman's Cave near Alhama in Granada.-The Guanches of the Canary Isles.-Iberic Dolicho-cephali of the same race as those of Britain, France, and Belgium-Cognate or Identical with the Basque Race.-Ev

man Remains to those f

cessary to define the cranial terminology, as adopted by Professors Busk, Huxley, Dr. Thurnam, and other high authorities.190 The term "cephalic index"

is that adopted by Dr. Thurnam and Professo

long skulls with cephalic

-cephali " "

ali, or oval skull

hy-cephali

hali or broad skull

enting the extremes of dolicho- and brachy-cephalism as well as every kind of asymmetry. This, however, is due to our very abnormal conditions of l

ful movement of races, but war was the normal condition, and society was not sufficiently advanced to remove man from the

red from the comparison of the skull of an Irish hog with that of its ancestor the wild-boar, or even that o

icho-cephali an

lery graves" of our island, which from the invariable absence of bronze, and the frequent presence of polished stone implements, may be referred to the neolithic age, the crania belong, with scarcely an exception, to the first two of these divisions. In the round barrows, on the other hand, in which bronze artic

rtant conclusion has been verified by nearly every discovery which has been made in this country since its publication. The long skulls graduate192 into the broad, the oval skulls being the intermediate forms; and this would naturally re

nal region, behind which is a trace of transverse depression. The parietal tubers are somewhat full, and add materially to the breadth of this otherwise narrow skull. The posterior borders of the parietals are prolonged backwards, to join a complex chain of Wormian bones in the line of the lambdoid suture. The superior scale of the occiput is full, rounded, and prominent; t

e Islanders; but the very reverse of all these. They are indeed more orthognathic even than many Europeans, and the facial characters generally are mild, and without exaggerated development in any one direction." Their faces are oval. The upper jaw is small, and the sockets of the incisors and canine almost vertical. The supra-occipital region is full and rounded, and there is a post-coronal annular depression on

enting the character of prognathism. The face, instead of being oval, is angular or lozenge-shaped. On the back of the head the occipital tuberosity, or probole, is the most prominent feature, and there is also generally an occipital flattening, which may have been caused by the use of an uny

than that of the dolicho-cephali, the average for the ad

it by Dr. Thurnam, although the crania belong to the ortho-cephalous portion of the series, that is, tending towards broad-headedness. It may therefore be inferred that t

olicho-cephali in

e a second, from the cave of Uphill in Somersetshire, explored by Mr. James Parker in 1863, measures ·723. (See p. 197.) The latter was associated with rude pottery, charcoal, and the remains of the

e possession of the platycnemic character, has been met with in a cave in King's Scar, near Settle (see

Mackay. There were two human skeletons, along with the broken and burnt bones of the roe and stag, limpet-shells, flint nodules, and

nd from the bed of the Nore in Queen's County, and from that of the river Blackwater. To it also Professor Huxley refers121 five or six out of the seven skulls obtained by Mr. Laing from the stone cists in the burial mound at Keiss in Caithness, and associated with rude weapons and implements of bone and stone. They196 probably belonged to the inhabitants of the neighbouring burgh, or circular stone dwelling, in and around which were the broken bones of the following animal remains: the Bos longifrons, goat, stag, hog, horse, dog, fox, gra

son under the name of "boat-shaped" or "kumbe-cephalic,"

l be seen that the extreme long-headedness of those from the long barrows is not possessed by those either of the caves and tombs o

the broad-headed race. In that case, however, none of the tallness, or prognathism,197 of the latter has been handed down. It is most probably a mere variation within the limits of one

e of

. Breadth.

. L

C

.

de

, long barrows 7·7 5·5

long barrows 7·45 5·3

reu Cave 7·07 5·5

ave 7·3 5·3

5·43 -

(Huxley) 7·22 5·45

ley) 7·0 5·4

) 7·15 5·5

uxley) 7·2 5·65

hole of Britain and Ireland, burying their dead in caves, but more generally in chambered tombs. They were farmers and shepherds, and

of the Bra

cupied all those parts of Britain and Ireland that were worth conquering, and drove away to the west or absorbed the smaller neolithic inhabitants. And the identity of their skull-form, in the series of interments in the round and bowl-

o columns of the following Table, which is an abstract of those published by Dr.

9

ephali, and Gaulish and Belgic B

Length. Breadth.

Lat

Cep

A

in

ITAIN.

rows N.B.I. ?7·28 5·9

arrows N.B.I. 6·9 5·6

RANCE.

me N. 6·9 5·6p

Oise N. 7·2 5·8p

7·3 5·2p 5·2

7·1 5·7p 5·2

6·9 5·9p 5·5

7·3 5·4p 5·5

7·4 5·2p 5·6

N. 6·6 5·6p

7·1 5·5p 5·6

7·2 5·5? 5·8

7·2 5·8? -

N. 7·4 5·3?

7·1 5·5? -

7·4 5·5? 5·4

.(?) 7·4 5·8?

7·1 5·8p 5·3

·2 5·4p 5·7

·1 5·9p 5·6

·7 5·5p 5·4

·6 5·6p 5·5

·2 5·9? 5·4

·8 5·75 5·1

7·4 5·8? 5·7

7·2 5·9? -

6·7 5·5? 5·5

7·? ?5·95p

7·2 5·7? 5·5

3 5·8p 5·7

re ?7·25 5·5?

7·7 5·5? -

es 6·7 5·4p

N. 7·3 5·5?

6·9 5·8?

·8 5·5p -

7·4 5·6p 5·5

5·6p 5·4

5·6? 5·5

) (?) 6·9 5·4?

N ?7·35 5·3? 5

uld) N ?7·35 6·5?

7·25 6·25 ?5·25

6·9 5·75

?6·95 -

hic; B, Bro

Brachy-cephali in France in the Neoli

brachy-cephali lived in that country in the neolithic age. We are indebted to the former for a most important account of the C

0

bed by their search after hidden treasure before it was explored by Dr. Prunières. In front of the cave was a platform, composed of earth mingled with fragments of charcoal, forming a layer about forty centimetres thick, in which were the stones of seven hearths, flint-flakes and scrapers, lanc

re was no prejudice against the use of its flesh. In the cave

ere human bones, in a thick layer of dry sand, scattered about in the wildest confusion, which was probably the result of successive interments, as well as of subseq

but they do not, as M. Broca justly observes, imply the practice of cannibalism, since they may have fall

ibed by M. Broca as seven male, six female, three of uncertain sex, and three children. They are remarkable for the softness of their contours, the delicacy of their features, and the orthognathism o

udy of the bones of the skeleton confirms these differences. The men who buried their dead in the Caverne de l'Homme Mort were smaller than the dolmen builders, their bones were more slender, and they were altogether a less muscular race. They are considered by M. Broca to represent the neolithic aborigin

ch had been occupied, probably by the same people, since202 the same kind of instruments were discovered as

hral Cave

f blood between the broad- and the long-headed peoples. On referring to the preceding Table (p. 199) it will be seen that the cephalic index varies from ·75 to ·88. Eight out of the series of twenty-one skulls united the characteristic dolicho-cephalous fore-h

the remarkable supramastoid depressions, visible in the hindhead of these skulls, seem to be well explained by the idea of an intersection or crossing of these two tendencies in the brain-growth; correspondi

ur humeri the fossa of th

sociated with fragments of coarse pottery, flint flakes, and bones of ruminants. T

rom Fren

71 to ·78 (Broca), and other similar cases are quoted by Dr. Thurnam from Noyelles-sur-Mer, Fontenay, and other tumuli. In the large sepulchral chamber at Meudon, that contained 200 skeletons, the majority of the skulls were

eriod in the neolithic age than in Britain. And this must necessarily have been the case from the geographical position of our island, which could only be invaded, in those

i of the Iberian P

into the caves of Gibraltar, have resulted in the proof that, in the neolithic age, that barren rock was i

f mammals, birds, and fishes, flint flakes, and pottery. Below were two floors of stalagmite, filled with loose stones and earth, through which a shaft penetrated into a fissure at a lower level, leading into a lower chamber that had a free communication with the surface, since the current of air was so strong as to extinguish the lamps. In t

rial. With this exception, the whole group of Genista Caves contained human bones, resting in the greatest confusion, and proving that since the bodies had been interred the contents had been disturbed, either by the burrowing of animals or by the action of water, pools of which were present in some of the chambers. Evidence of the former presence of water was to be seen in the sheets of stalagmite on most of the floors. The same confusion would result, as is suggested by Professor Busk,

orated spouts, similar to those still in use by the Kabyles of Algeria, and some of the Berber tribes. Some of it, however, is of a fine red ware turned in the lathe, and probably introduced at a later period, even, as remarked by Mr. Franks, after the Roman occupation of Spain, to which he refers a bronze fish-hook, the only metallic article found in the group of caves. The im

-Chwareu (Fig. 38), flakes, a greenstone chisel, querns and rubbing-stones, a whetstone perforated for suspension, an

of the linea aspera and the thickness of their walls (Fig. 57), the medullary cavity being reduced to a small size, as in those figured from the tumulus at Cefn. Some of the207 tibi? are platycnemic, presenting the peculiar lateral fl

p://novel.tingroom.com/file/upload/201

-Cranium from Gen

hous, and wholly aphanozygous. In one the frontal sinuses are considerably more developed than they are in the other, but in neither is there any thickening208 of the supra-orbital border" (Busk). The teeth are worn flat. T

ug out of the Judge's Cave by Sir James Cochrane. The tibi? are platycnemic, and the skull is described by Professor Busk as being "perfectly symmetrical, brachy-cephalic, slightly prognathous, but with vertical teeth, aphan

va de los

described by M. Broca, from Guipuscoa on the Spanish and St. Jean de Luz on the French side of the Pyrenees. He points out, also, the resemblance which exists between the crania figured by Don Gongora y Martinez, from the caverns and dolmens of Andalusia and those under209 con

of which was adorned with a plain coronet of gold, and clad in a tunic made of esparto-grass, finely plaited, so as to form a pattern which resembles some of the designs on gold ornaments from Etruscan tombs. At a spot further within, a second group of twelve skeletons lay in a semicircle, around one considered by Don Manuel to have belonged to a woman, covered with a tunic of skin, and wearing a necklace of es

cond, in the same neighbourhood,210 similar interments were met with in ass

lls agree with those from the latter, there can be little doubt but that, in the neolithic

s Cave, ne

reenstone of the neolithic age, mingled with charcoal, pottery, and human skeletons of the same type as those from Gibraltar. The human skull, figured by Mr. McPherson, is dolicho-cep

s were discovered along with bronze (copper?) lance-heads, and pottery of the same sort as that of the caves. It is, therefore, eviden

1

s of the Ca

, preferring for their winter residence those near the coast, and "in the summer those in the higher parts in the interior of the island, whence they could enjoy the fresh air of the hills." Some of these caves have been excavated by the hand of man, and are divided into square chambers, containing rock-hewn benches, "and deep niches made to contain vessels of milk or water." They had also stone houses, thatched with straw or fern. The

bordinate to one head, and were divided into "nobles and common people

es. They manufactured vessels out of clay or hard wood, needles of fishbones, beads of clay, and they especially excelled in the art of tanning. The civilization of this very interesting people may fairly be taken to be a fragment of that of North Africa and of Europe in the

nd the civilization of the Guanches may therefore be taken to represent that of the Iber

li of the same Race

what Professor Busk observes of the ancient population of Spain is equally true of that of our country in the neolithic age. And the identity of form is e

Brdth. Hei

e.

de

thi-Chwareu 7·07 5

ave, No. 3 (Busk) 7·35

rom Guipuscoa (Thurnam) 7·2

tto 6·9? 5·3

ly male 7·4? 5·

t. Jean de Luz 7·02

phali cognate

. in the one, and 37·36 per cent. (Broca) in the other; a difference that is doubtless caused by the greater mixture of blood in the south-west of France than in the north-west of Spain, shut off from the broad-headed Gallic tribes by the Pyrenees.134 Six214 skulls, obtained by Professor Virchow from Bilbao, agree in all particulars with those from Guipuscoa. M. Broca has further shown, that this group of Spanish skulls offers all the characters of the black-haired, swarthy, oval-faced, Basque population of the surround

concluded that in Gaul, as in Britain, it was the older of the two races. The two have also been met with in the caves of Belgium. If we allow that an aboriginal Basque population spread over the whole of Britain, France, and Belgium, and tha

the river-bed skulls belong to the215 same race.135 (Compare Table p. 197 with the preceding.) We have therefore proof, that an Iberian or Basque population spread over the whol

y-cephali in Neolithic Ca

h in Belgium, the one in the famous cave of

, who published his account of the discoveries in 1853, and subsequently in 1864 and 1866. Below a thin layer of loam was a floor of stalagmite, concealing a vast number of broken human bones mixed pêle-mêle with those of wild and domestic animals, and associated with charcoa

r. Spring136 inferred that the broken human bones proved that human beings, as well as the animals, formed the food of the cave-dwellers, and further, sinc

oor during the habitation of man. Such a mixture of remains we have already observed in the caves of North Wales and Gibraltar. The recent researches of M. Soreil138 leave no room for doubting the truth of M. Dupont's interpretation. Two perfect human skeletons were discovered along with flint flakes, pottery, a barbed arrow-head, and many scattered human bones not broken by design, while the long bones of the associated animals bore unmistakeable217 traces of having been split for the sake of the marrow. On one long bone, for example, of the ox, there were cuts made by a flint implement, as

r a neolithic people, whose implements abound in the neighbour

ards the valley. They rested side by side in two small holes, which had been dug in the deposit containing the bones of the animals, and the

h is probably analogous to the "tête annulaire," so commonly present in the long skulls of the neolithic age. It possesses a cephalic index

in, and Spain. They belong to people in the same stage of culture, and practising the same mode of burial in a crouching posture.

of Scla

from Namur, has been proved to contain human bones, lying mixed with those of the animals in th

geh

dg

h-ma

az

o

o

d C

a

bb

x

o

t

o

rs

de

to bodies which had been interred at different times. From the lower jaws M. Arnould calculates that the number of bodies interred was not less than

om.com/file/upload/201606/29/

l from Cave of Scl

ed, 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 bon

p://novel.tingroom.com/file/upload/201

nemic tibia, fr

the caves of Gibraltar, and in France and Great Britain (Fig. 67). It is due, as in those from North Wales, to th

e shaft, of the same type as one from Chauvaux, implies that these remains belong to the

ory as to the People

The Aquitani were surrounded on every side, except the south, by the Celt?, 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 Volc?, over the Eastern Pyrenees into Spain. The district round the Phoc?an 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 probably221 extended to the west along the coast of Southern Gaul as far as the Pyrenees.141 They were distinguished from the Celt?, 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

oom.com/file/upload/201606/2

asque, Celtic, and Belgic

a 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 cogna

Population

pulations 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

ir 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, o

2

lation o

r 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 Belg? pressed on the rear of the Celts as fa

ether 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 t

resent British and

f the Silures, where the hills have afforded shelter to the Basque populations from the invaders.147 The small swarthy Welshman of Denbigh

ngularly 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 popula

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 1? inches), it will be seen that the only swarthy people outside the boundary of Aquitaine constitute five

t through Aquitaine, and occur only in two departments in northern Celtica. The fair people, on the other hand, are massed in northern Celtic

oirs 98·5

s 64·?

s 48·8

rs 23·?

the smallest and the fair the tallest, the intermediate

races in France at the present time, corresponds essentially with that which we might

s, the persistence of the Basque population is very remarkable. It is not a little stran

ame the

ir 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 sec

y possessed. The Bos longifrons, the sheep, and the goat are derived from wild stocks that are now to be found only in central Asia;

nd Belgic Br

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 ar

on-Aryan peoples being regulated by their strength, and the amount of230 pressure on their rear. The Belg? probably were not known in Gaul until the la

ochroi), contrasting strongly with the Basque "Melanochro

ent Germ

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 hea

l Conc

opulation 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 earlie

he Basque being due to their being descended from the same non-Aryan stock in possession of southern and western Eur

ither identical or cognate with the Celts gradually crept westward over Germany into Gaul, Spai

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