Kollmann believes that they were a distinct species of
mankind.]
Dr. Rahon,[A] who has recently made a careful study of the bones of
pre-historic and proto-historic races, with special reference to their
stature, states that the skeletons attributed to the most ancient and to
the Neolithic races are of a stature below the middle height, the average
being a little over five feet three inches. The peoples who constructed
the Megalithic remains of Roknia and of the Caucasus, were of a stature
similar to our own. The diverse proto-historic populations, Gauls, Franks,
Burgundians, and Merovingians, considered together, present a stature
slightly superior to that of the French of the present day, but not so
much so as the accounts of the historians would have led us to believe.
[Footnote A: _Recherches sur les Ossements Humaines, Anciens et
Prehistonques. Mem. de la Soc. d'Anthrop. de Paris_, Ser, ii. tom. iv.
403.]
It remains now to deal with two races whose physical characters are of
considerable importance in connection with certain points which will be
dealt with in subsequent pages, I mean the Lapps and the Innuit or Eskimo.
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