Page:Palæolithic Man and Terramara Settlements in Europe.djvu/197

Rh remained, but portions of the limbs were fairly well preserved. The body is supposed to be that of a female 1.48 metres (4 feet 10 inches) in height. The Ferrassie skeletons are considered of importance on account of the precise stratigraphy of the deposits, which leave no doubt as to their undisturbed condition.

Human Skeletons of Grenelle.

Human bones have been often recorded from the ancient gravels of the Seine. In 1867 M. Emile Martin gave a description of the gravel-pits at Grenelle and the position in which a number of human skeletons were found. Dr Pruner-Bey, to whom he showed the skulls, as well as some flint implements and animal bones associated with them, positively declared that he recognised the former as belonging to a Mongoloid race who inhabited Gaul before the Celts and the Kimri. (C.A.P., 1867, p. 344.)

The alluvial deposits of Grenelle are composed of two distinct beds, called superior and inferior, in the latter of which the bones of Elephas antiquus, mammoth, woolly-haired rhinoceros, reindeer, etc., have been found generally at a depth of 7 to 8 metres. The upper bed, in which the human remains were found, consists of sandy layers almost sterile in relics of any kind. There is a consensus of opinion that the persons whose skeletons are here represented were victims of former inundations of the Seine. The position in which the bodies lay is little above the present level of the river. According to G. de Mortillet (Le Préhistorique, 3rd edition, p. 282), no naturalist, after careful consideration of the facts, would assign a greater antiquity to the Grenelle skeletons than the age of Robenhausen ; and yet the skulls of these people have caused much learned discussion. M. Hamy describes one as belonging to the Cro-Magnon race (Pal. Humaine, p. 253) ; and in Crania Ethnica one of the Grenelle skulls is brachycephalic, with a cephalic index of 83.53.

Nothing better illustrates the importance of caution in accepting reports of excavations conducted by unskilled people than these Grenelle discoveries. The slender grounds on which some of the ablest anthropologists formulated their racial theories in those early days is astounding. M. de