NEGRO RACE IN EUROPE.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XLV, Issue XLV, 18 April 1910, Page 5

NEGRO RACE IN EUROPE.

Professor Arthur Keith, M.D., devoted the second of his series of Hu'iterian lectures on "The Anatomy and Relationships of the Negro and Negroid Races," delivered at the Royal College of Surgeons, London (says "The Times"), to the consideration of the evidence of the existence of a negro race it Europe in ancient times. He said that this question was brought to the front for the first time, a few year s ago, by the discovery oi the skeletons of two human beings, buried 28ft. beneath the floor of a cave at Mentone, in the Riviera. The, excavations which led to this most important anthropological find were conducted under the direction of the Prince of Monaco. The skeletons were most fully and carefully examined by Dr. Verneau, the celebrated French, anthropologist, and he came to the conclusion that they 'Were those oi negroes, to which he gave the name of the Grimaldi race. Th e age at which these people lived could be almost definitely fixed by the remains of s> Bemi-tropical fauna which were found with the skeletons. That made taem more recent than the oldest known race of Europe, but older than the race which wag probably represented in England by the men of Galley Hill, near Gravesend. How far away tha„ age was might be inferred from th*.fact that since then the River Thames had worn away its bed by fully 100 ft. Tt was 'from 50,000 to 80.000 years ago. He was at first doubtful of the grounds upon which Dr. Verneau hatf determined that the Grimaldi raer was a negro race; but, on a close examination of the largo collection Oskulls in the museum of the Hnyn_ College of Surgeons, ho discover! skulls of the negro race from the Fjf Islands which wer P absolute dupl:cates of the skulls of tho Grimalm race. There was, consequently. n-> longer anv doubt as to the truth of the conclusion arrived at by Dr Verneau. that at one time the southeri part of Europe, at least, was occupied by a negro race. Moreover, all ih« evidence at orescnt available esHlv lHied tlm fact that primitiVo man nf a rlnrk colour, and that the evolution of the lighter-skinner! Enrr>p»»jn rfiep was. etoolorn pally PTiealung. > comparatively recent event