THE GRIMALDI OR NEGROID RACE
The date of the ending of the Neanderthal race and the beginning of
the Cro-Magnon supremacy is the first date that can be given with any
confidence. Geologists are agreed that this, which corresponds roughly
with the ending of the Fourth Glacial Period and the beginning of the
present Postglacial time, took place about 25,000 years ago. This race
came in with the Aurignacian culture. The early stations of this period
are scattered along the north and south shores of the Mediterranean
Sea, and are not found in eastern or central Europe. Apparently they
came from Asia through the land of Phoenicia, part of them passing
along the northern coast of Africa, including Tunis, into Spain; and
perhaps part along the northern coast of the Mediterranean through
Italy. Where they came from we cannot with any certainty state. It was
probably from somewhere on the continent of Asia; for their physical
structure is of the Asiatic type, and hardly at all of the African or
Ethiopian type. The reason that we cannot speak with definiteness of
Asia as their homeland, is that this continent has been only slightly
explored for anthropological remains. At the present time several large
expeditions are at work in Asia, especially in the backlands of Thibet
north of the Himalayas; it is confidently believed that here, or in
northern India, the central scattering point of the human race may
be discovered, with the possibility of the discovery of remains of a
race closely akin to the Trinil Man, the Ape-man of Java. Without this
evidence, we can only indicate the probability that these Cro-Magnons
came from Asia, and followed the trail later taken by the true
Mediterranean race, dark-haired, long-headed, narrow-faced people, who
followed this coast in early Neolithic years, or, again, like the wave
of Arabian Moslem advance which pushed forward along the north coast of
Africa into Spain and as far as mid-France, more than a thousand years
ago.
An additional support to 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 were found in the Grotto of Grimaldi,
near Mentone, France. These skeletons were found in 1906 by Vernau.
They are called the negroids of Grimaldi, because they are the only
Upper Old Stone Age race discovered in Europe resembling the African
negroid race. Anatomically they are not closely related to either the
Neanderthals or the Cro-Magnons. Their culture seems to have been
Aurignacian, because their skeletal remains were found just above
the layer which marked the close of Mousterian times. There are nine
grottoes of Grimaldi, which yielded the remains of sixteen individuals,
fourteen of which apparently belonged to the Cro-Magnon race, and two
to the Grimaldi negroids. At this time, along this southerly shore,
the hippopotamus, the straight-tusked elephant, and the rhinoceros
still roamed, as the last members of the great African-Asiatic animals.
Vernau, the discoverer of the Grimaldi negroids, is inclined to regard
them as of a very ancient race, much older than the Cro-Magnons. He
believes that they belonged to a new racial type which formerly played
an important role in Europe, and enjoyed wide geographic distribution.
A professor in Cambridge has recently elaborated this theory, holding
that the negroid race was the first human race to separate from the
parent stock in Asia; that its members divided, part going south
into Africa, and part more directly westward into Europe, where they
scattered widely and blended into subsequent stocks. There is as yet
small evidence for this enlarged theory. Osborn is one who holds that
these two skeletons were probably true negroids who found their way
into Europe from Africa, but never became fully established as a race
in Europe.
Of the two skeletons found by Vernau, one is that of a middle-aged
woman; the other that of a youth of sixteen or seventeen. Both clearly
belong to the existing species of man, _Homo sapiens_. In the Grotto
of the Infants, in which the bodies were found, there is at the bottom
traces of Mousterian fire-hearths, probably used by Neanderthals;
above that, the two Grimaldi negroids; above and in close proximity to
these, various remains of the Cro-Magnon race. The Grimaldi negroids
were not a tall race, averaging 5 feet 2 inches; this is noticeably
shorter than the Cro-Magnon women and youths. There are many negroid
characteristics in the skull, the hip-girdle, and the proportions of
the limbs. In common with the man-like apes, there are found the long
forearm, the curved thigh-bone, and the marked projection of the teeth.
The nose is broad and flat, the jaw heavy without much chin. Somewhat
to the contrary implications is the fact that the head is long and
disharmonic, as are the Cro-Magnon heads. By disharmonic is meant that,
with a long head, the face is short and quite broad. The brain capacity
is relatively high, being estimated at 1,580 c. cm. The forearm and
thigh-bone resemble the man-like apes; the proportions of the leg are
similar to the Cro-Magnons.
Upon the subject, Vernau writes: “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
(head) characters, in the structure of his pelvis, and in his limb
proportions, showed striking analogies to the negro of today. In their
remarkable proportions they exaggerate some of the peculiarities of
the recent Negroes; their teeth resemble those of the Australian type.
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 (projection of the face) 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 (long-headedness), 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.”
In view of the divergence of the authorities, it may be safer to
conclude with Keith that the Grimaldi people represent an intermediate
type in the evolution of the typical white and black races. The
Grimaldi negroids constitute one of the great puzzles of anthropology.
By the ratio of skeletons preserved to probable human beings existing,
these two bodies indicate that a large number of negroids inhabited
Europe at this period. Whether they were as widely spread and as
influential as Vernau contends is problematical. Future excavations may
throw further light upon them, even if it be only in a negative way.