Without going outside Europe, we have, however, to reckon with at least two other types of very early head-form.

In one of the caves of Mentone known as La Grotte des Enfants two skeletons from a low stratum were of a primitive type, but unlike the Neanderthal, and have been thought to show affinities to the modern negro.  As, however, no other Proto-Negroes are indisputably forthcoming either from Europe or from any other part of the world, there is little at present to be made out about this interesting racial type.

In the layer immediately above the negroid remains, however, as well as in other caves at Mentone, were the bones of individuals of quite another order, one being positively a giant.  They are known as the Cro-Magnon race, after a group of them discovered in a rock shelter of that name on the banks of the Vezere.  These particular people can be shown to be Aurignacian—­that is to say, to have lived just after the Mousterian men of the Neanderthal head-form.  If, however, as has been already suggested, the Galley Hill individual, who shows affinities to the Cro-Magnon type, really goes back to the drift-period, then we can believe that from very early times there co-existed in Europe at least two varieties; and these so distinct, that some authorities would trace the original divergence between them right back to the times before man and the apes had parted company, linking the Neanderthal race with the gorilla and the Cro-Magnon race with the orang.  The Cro-Magnon head-form is refined and highly developed.  The forehead is high, and the chin shapely, whilst neither the brow-ridge nor the lower jaw protrudes as in the Neanderthal type.  Whether this race survives in modern Europe is, as was said in the last chapter, highly uncertain.  In certain respects—­for instance, in a certain shortness of face—­these people present exceptional features; though some think they can still find men of this type in the Dordogne district.  Perhaps the chances are, however, considering how skulls of the neolithic period prove to be anything but uniform, and suggest crossings between different stocks, that we may claim kinship to some extent with the more good-looking of the two main types of palaeolithic man—­always supposing that head-form can be taken as a guide.  But can it?  The Pygmies of the Congo region have medium heads; the Bushmen of South Africa, usually regarded as akin in race, have long heads.  The American Indians, generally supposed to be all, or nearly all, of one racial type, show considerable differences of head-form; and so on.  It need not be repeated that any race-mark is liable to deceive.

* * * * *

We have sufficiently considered the use to which the particular race-mark of head-form has been put in the attempted classification of the very early men who have left their bones behind them.  Let us now turn to another race-mark, namely colour; because, though it may really be less satisfactory than others, for instance hair, that is the one to which ordinary people naturally turn when they seek to classify by races the present inhabitants of the earth.