Page:Palæolithic Man and Terramara Settlements in Europe.djvu/257

Rh could be no reasonable doubt that the Paviland interment would be a precise parallel to those of the caves of Grimaldi in Italy.

It will also be borne in mind that all the fossil human remains reviewed in the previous lectures have not the same archæological value, some being deficient owing to decay of particular bones, and others probably from defective observations. But, after making due allowance for possible imperfections in the records, there remains a sufficient amount of trustworthy evidential materials to show that there were, at least, four or five human races living during or towards the close of the Pleistocene period in Europe without counting the brachycephalic people who are supposed to have been immigrants into the country, and, consequently, were only contemporary with the former during the transition period.

The physical characters of these races may be thus briefly defined, without loading our description with minute anatomical details :—

(1) Homo Heidelbergensis.

Of this race there is only one mandible known (Fig. 59), and the circumstances under which it has been discovered have already been described. In some respects it is the most simianlike bone that has hitherto come to light, but as regards the relative size of the teeth it seems to come nearer the human arrangement than some other known jaws. If geologists are correct in defining the stratigraphical deposits in which it had been preserved as Pliocene, it must be regarded as the oldest fragment of fossil man in the world, with, perhaps, the exception of Pithecanthropus erectus. It is wonderfully well preserved, and in massiveness it exceeds all known human mandibles.

(2) Neanderthal-Spy Race.

This race, with the exception of that represented by the Heidelberg jaw above referred to, is the oldest in Europe of which we have any knowledge from the remains of the actual skeletons of its individual members. From an examination of these bones and their associated relics the range of the race,