397 



XXXVII. — On Distoeted Human Skulls. By Professor WyviUe 

 Thomson. 



It seems to have hitherto been generally admitted that the bones 

 of men and of the lower animals found in a fossil or subfossil state 

 retain precisely or with an inappreciable amount of contraction, the 

 form which they possessed during life, and that therefore their mea- 

 surements form as valid a basis for argument or for speculation, as if 

 we had had an oj^porturdty of deriving them from the recent bones. 

 Several singular cases have been observed during the last few years, 

 showing that bones may undergo a very decided change in form, after 

 burial, without being wholly disintegrated. These distortions are 

 comparatively slight, rarely, if ever, altering the bone sufficiently to 

 obscure its distinctive characters : they only occur as a rule in thin 

 flat bones, they appear never to affect the teeth ; they are therefore 

 of little importance in the case of the lower animals. 



One congeries of bones, the human skuU, seems to be specially 

 Hable to such posthumous alterations. This liability depends doubt- 

 less upon the great size of the brain-cavity in proportion to the 

 thickness of its walls, and to the extreme closeness and frequent 

 partial anchylosis of the sutxires, resisting the separation of the 

 bones under slow pressure, in cases where slight softening has ren- 

 dered the skull in mass to a certain extent plastic. Now that the 

 proportions and measurements of skulls found in old sepulchres, and 

 in connection with ancient habitations are believed to throw so much 

 light upon the distribution of human races, it becomes of importance 

 to ascertain generally the frequency of such distortions, their extent 

 and description, and the circumstances under which they usually or 

 unusually occur. 



Opportunities of observation seem to be frequent, and the pheno- 

 mena are usually well marked. Since I first thought of the matter 

 towards the close of last summer, and with but little time to devote 

 to such questions, I have seen, I should think, more than thirty skidls 

 more or less distorted ; and I have little doubt that there already 

 exist, scattered in antiquarian collections, materials which might add 

 greatly to our stock of information. All the distorted skulls which 

 I have had an opportunity of examining, have been twisted nearly in 

 the same way, though in a greater or less degree. This uniformity 

 of malformation is so evident, that ia cases where a number of such 

 skulls have been found together, it has led to the idea that the form 

 was a hereditary malformation, or that the skulls belonged to a 

 family of idiots. Messrs. Davis and Thurnam (" Crania Bi-itan- 

 nica,'.' plates 15, 16 and 27), figure skulls from cists at Juniper Grreen, 

 near Edinburgh, at Lesmm'die, Banffshire, and in Orkney, all of 

 which are slightly distorted. In reference to these skulls, Mr. Davis 

 suggests the question, " whether a slight distorting jjrocess may not 

 have influenced the cranial conformation of the Britons, at least of 



2 E 2 



