296 ORIGINAL ARTICLES, 



ject of this Note, yet closely allied to it, is a very curious distorted 

 skull of an Anglo-Saxon woman, derived from the cemetery at Harn- 

 ham, near Salisbury. It has been carefully and correctly figured in 

 the " Crania Britannica," p. 40. However improbable in the pre- 

 sent state of our knowledge it has seemed, I have always felt myself 

 obliged to regard this as an example of artificial deformation, and 

 have referred to the distorted skull of an ancient Peruvian woman 

 (" Crania Americana," plate 3) as closely resembling it in form. 

 The latter presents the peculiar ridges which indicate the position of 

 the compressing bandages in Peruvian skulls. These are also jire- 

 sent, although slight, in the Hai^nham specimen. It is, perhaps, in 

 some measure to be attributed to the gi^eat improbability of the 

 Saxon tribes having employed artificial means to distort the cranium, 

 that we owe another attempt at explanation. In his recent valuable 

 work, "Zur Morphologic der Eassenschadel," Professor J. C. Gr. 

 Lucae, of Frankfort, has the following passage : — " Der in der ersten 

 " Decade der Crania Britannica, Chap. iv. pag. 40, abgebildete vers- 

 " chobene Schadel eines Weibes, der nach Angabe der Autoren durch 

 " Kunst entstanden sein soil, verdankt sicher seine Bildung den vor- 

 " handenen Synostosen. Nach der Abbildung ist hier gleichfalls der 

 " grosse Keilbeinflugel mit dem Scheitelbein verwachsen. Da aber 

 "hier auch zugleich der Keilbeinfliigel mit dem untere Theil des 

 *' Stirnbeines verwachsen ist, so ist hier nicht allein ein Sattel, son- 

 *' dern auch das gauze Stirnbein flach gestellt," S. 53. Although 

 distortion by synostosis is an ingenious conjecture, and quite con- 

 sistent with the rationale of deformation in other crania depicted by 

 Dr. Lucae, to which he refers, it is singidarly at variance both with 

 the figure of the Harnliam specimen, and with the skull itself. In 

 the woodcut, the spheno-parietal, the spheno-frontal, and the spheno- 

 temporal sutures, so far from being the subjects of synostosis, are 

 distinctly and accurately represented on the left side as quite open. 

 There is even a slight gap in the position of the second, occasioned 

 by the breaking off of a portion of the frontal. And, in the skull 

 itself, these sutures, both on the right and left sides of the head, are 

 seen to be patent and entire without any obliteration. That synos- 

 tosis could have given rise to the deformation, as the distinguished 

 Professor of Anatomy at Franldbrt presumes, is wholly inadmissible. 

 The skull of a man of about 40 years of age, a Merovingian Frank, 

 from the cemetery at Envermen, near Dieppe, in the Department of 

 Seinc-Inferieure, in my collection. No. 209, presents, although in a 

 lesser degree, the same kind of deformation, and that with all the 

 sutures of the alisphenoid open, therefore, without synostosis. The 

 hint thrown out in the description of this Harnham specimen, that 

 further research may probably reveal much more extensive distortion 

 among ancient European tribes, seems to be rather confirmed than 

 otherwise. 



