CHANCELADE SKELETON

human fossil remains discovered in a rock shelter at Chancelade in southwestern France in 1888. The skeleton was found in a curled posturean indication of a deliberate burialbelow the lower Magdalenian occupation floors of the shelter; it is assumed to be of Magdalenian age (about 17,000 years old). The Chancelade skull was studied by the French anatomist Jean-Lo Testut, who declared it to be of Eskimo type and established it as the type specimen of a supposed Chancelade race. Although its Eskimo affinities were long accepted by many reputable anthropologists, later experts generally agreed that, like the Grimaldi fossils, originally presumed to be a Negroid type, the Chancelade skull falls within the range of variation of Cro-Magnon man.