tocene Period introduces us to more diversity in the way
of human types. Only one race, however, that named after the
rock-shelter of Cro-Magnon in the Dordogne, is represented by a fair
number of specimens, namely, about a dozen. At this point we come
suddenly and without previous warning on as pretty a kind of man as
ever walked this earth. In his leading characters he is remarkably
uniform. Six feet high and long-legged, he likewise possessed a head
well stocked with brains and a face that, if rather broad and short,
was furnished by way of compensation with a long and narrow nose. If
the present world can show nothing quite like him, it at least cannot
produce anything more shapely in the way of the 'human form divine'.
Apart from the Cro-Magnons, the remains of an old woman and a youth
found at the lowest level of the Grotte des Enfants at Mentone are
usually held to belong to a distinct stock known as the Grimaldi. The
physical characters of the pair are regarded as negroid, verging on
the Pygmy; but if we could study an adult male of the same stock, it
might possibly turn out not to be so very divergent from the
Cro-Magnon. Again, a single specimen does duty for the so-called
Chancelade race. The skeleton is of comparatively low stature, and is
deemed to show close affinities to the type of the modern Eskimo.
Without being unduly sceptical, one may once more wonder if the
Cro-Magnon stock may not have produced this somewhat aberrant form.
Even on such a theory, however--and it is hardly orthodox--diversity
of physical structure would seem to be on the increase. On the other
hand, there are reasons of considerable cogency for referring to the
end of this period skeletons of what Huxley termed the 'River-bed
type', the peculiarity of which consists in the fact that they are
more or less indistinguishable from the later Neolithic men and indeed
from any of those slight-built, shortish, long-headed folk who form
the majority in the crowded cities of to-day. Some authorities would
ascribe a far greater antiquity to this type, but, I venture to think,
on the strength of doubtful evidence. The notorious Galley Hill
skeleton, for instance, found more or less intact in an Early
Pleistocene bed in which the truly contemporary animals are
represented by the merest battered remnants, to my mind reeks of
modernity. Be these things as they may, however, when we come to
Neolithic times a race of similar physical characters has E