380 On the Sepulchral Remains of Ancient Nations 



and the relics of art found in the same burrows, with several extensive 

 collections of similar remains in the Danish museums, particularly with 

 the contents of sepulchral mounds near Hellested in Sjaelland. The re- 

 sult seems to be, that the shape of the skulls is very similar in all the 

 tombs which belong to the first age, or that of stone implements. In 

 these tumuli, there are numerous ornaments of amber, weapons of stone 

 and of bone, but no relics that indicate the knowledge of metals among 

 the people who deposited them. These tumuli are very numerous, and 

 extensively spread, shewing that the tribe to which they belonged were 

 for ages the sole inhabitants of the northern countries. In a series of 

 burrows different from those described, ornaments, such as rings of gold, 

 sometimes of copper or of bronze, make their appearance ; and these be- 

 long evidently to a much later period of paganism. A third age succeeds, 

 which is that of iron instruments and weapons. The people, whose relics 

 are found in these last, are supposed to have been th(j ancestors of the 

 Danes, namely of the Jutic, Gothic, or Germano-Scandinavian race. 



" We still want more precise information as to the osteological character 

 of the skeletons found in these different series of tumuli, and the memoir 

 contains no account of those which belong to the two latest periods. On 

 the remains found in tumuli of the earliest class some interesting remarks 

 are to be found in Professor Eschricht's memoir; but these are scarcely 

 sufficient to satisfy all doubts as to the important ethnological question, 

 to what people they belonged } The author supposes they were ^ a 

 Caucasian race.' He draws this inference from the spherical form of the 

 head and its considerable development, and from the shape of the nasal 

 bones, which, as he says, are arched, indicating a prominent or aquiline 

 nose. On the other hand, he mentions characters which belong to the 

 Finnish nations rather than to Indo-Europeans. He says that the orbits 

 of the eyes were small and deeply set under the eyebrows, so that the 

 eye must have been deeply set, with strong prominent eyebrows : there 

 is a considerable depression of the nasal bones between the orbits. These 

 are characteristics of the Finnish race. A still stronger feature of resem- 

 blance to some of the Lappish, Finnish, and many kindred races, is the 

 lateral projection of the zygoma, giving to the skull much of that pyra- 

 midal form, which is so remarkable a feature of the Turanian nations. 

 This will be perceived by the reader on inspecting the annexed engrav- 

 ing,* which was taken from the cast, though it is not perceptible in the 

 profile or in the front view, neither of them affording aspects of the skull 

 which are satisfactory, given in the ^ Danske Folkeblad.' It would be 

 rash to conclude from these characters that the skull in question belonged 

 to a Finnish people, though that race is known, as we have seen, to have 

 approached in ancient times the borders of Denmark. We might rather 

 look upon the Cimbric or Celtic inhabitants of Northern Europe, as does 



Referring to the plate in Dr Pritchard's volume. 



