As for man himself, out of less than fifty skulls to which the title Quaternary has been ap plied, not more than a dozen can lie vouched for as beyond question. All of them are long headed or dolichocephalic in form. That is. the ratio of the length to the width of the skull is less than 80-82. With our present knowledge it is possible to divide the oldest crania into the following types: the Neanderthal or spy man, referable to the Mousterian Epoch (q.v.) : and the Laugerie Basse and Chancelade (Dordogne) type, to he referred to the Magdalenian Epoch. (See MADELEINE, LA.) The Neanderthal-spy type had the cephalic or length-width index of the skull, 70-75.3. together with a low, retreating forehead. prominent brow-ridges. and probably low stature, about 1.59 m., or 62 inches. This race did not fully disappear from Europe in early times. Neanderthaloid skulls have been found in the later prehistoric and historic graves and dolmens, and individuals of the same type exist in Europe and America at. the present time. The Laugerie-Chancelade type was also long-headed like the other, but the forehead was higher and the skull more capacious. The pro jecting brow-ridges were absent, the orbits were higher, the face with its prominent cheek-bones was elevated and broad, but the stature was low. After these two types, short of stature, eame the so-called Cro-Magnon race, who were extremely long-headed, the ratio of the head length to the width being from 63 to 75; the face and the orbits were low, but the stature was lofty, approaching CS inches.
After these vague epochs came the Neolithic or Polished Stone Period, followed by the Bronze or Tsiganian Period, and this by the Age of Iron. These changes did not come by sudden breaking down of the stone and bronze ages, but by transi tional steps with a separate history in each of the countries of Europe. For instance, the Pol ished Stone Period was not developed simul taneously over the Continent. Scandinavia. in its northern parts, was covered with glaciers, and only in the refuse-piles in Denmark are polished stone hatchets found contemporaneously with Neolithic tools of the rest of Europe. There were even, until quite recently, tribes in Russia who were still in this grade of progress.
These ancient Neolithic peoples were sedentary and industrial. Their fond was not obtained wholly by natural processes, lint artificialism in the cultivation of the soil and the domestication of animals progressed. Their homes were no longer movable tents, lint shlistantial buildings. They constructed the pile dwellings of Switzer. land, Prance, Italy, and perhaps of Deland. They buried their dead under dolmens. and it was they who set up huge megalithic monuments in England. Brittany, and Spain.
The Neolithic peoples of the British Isles. as well as of other parts of western Europe, were quite long-headed, the ratio of the length to the width of the skull being as low as 65-75. These earliest of European industrial peoples had also long faces like some existing populations of Europe. It must be carefully noted at this
point that in Sweden, France, Switzerland, Ger many, Austria, Spain, and Portugal crania of short-headed peoples are found mixed with doli choccphalic skulls. This tells an important story, for it clearly shows that with progress race-mixture had begun to take place, the borrow ing of blood being associated with the community of arts. Another fact worthy of notice is that the erection of huge stone and earth monuments, called barrows by ethnologists, indicates the con solidation of society, implying an increasing number of persons who could be brought. together in the same enterprise, and the consequent raising of an artificial food-supply so that these masses might cooperate for longer periods of time.
The so-called Ages of Metal in Europe, that is, of Copper, Bronze, and Iron, comprise the re maining epochs in the popular scheme of Euro pean arch:v(31°u. In America the earliest im plements in copper were cold-hammered and ground into shape, the material being treated technically precisely as if it were stone. It is not surprising, therefore, to find the same con dition of things in Europe. The parallelism is almost perfect in every respect. Copper tools and weapons do not mark a separate epoch, mean ing that the stone implements ceased to he used at once, nor must it he inferred that there was a Copper Age as distinguished from a Bronze Age, for copper tools and weapons are found as sociated with bronze relics. And here arises one of the most interesting inquiries of all, how far the exquisite products in bronze, found all over Europe, are results of indigenous development, and how far they indicate commerce or instruc tion from without. There is no doubt that both of these factors cooperated, the result of which was the art as it existed in each region.
It is a well-known law of progress that sugges tion is one of the strongest incentives to the use of materials and processes. There existed in central and western Europe a Bronze Age, which in some characteristics of its products resembles the Orient and in others is entirely original. The art of bronze smelting and working could not arise originally and develop completely and in dependently in any land; and secondly, such an art could not be imposed bodily upon a people who were not far enough advanced to add to it many thoughts and technical processes of their own. Progress and complexity in artificial ac tivities are produced by the mutual influence of races and peoples. In proof of this, the Bronze Age witnessed the coining of a great variety of physical types. In England the people became more braehycephalie, the ratio of head-length to head-width being 81. In Sweden and Denmark long-headed people. tall and fair-haired, ec(xisted with those of much larger index. In the Valley of the Rhine. as well as in southern Germany and Switzerland, the dolichocephaly was more pronounced. Knowledge of the use of fire among the peoples of the Bronze Age was contem poraneous also with the cremation of the dead.