406 Sir William Turner [March 26, 



skeletons gave a mean platyknemic index 68 • 3 ; intermediate, there- 

 fore, between their Neolithic predecessors and the present inhabitants 

 of Britain. Many of the tibiae also possessed a retroverted direction 

 of the head of the bone; but the plane of the condylar articular 

 surfaces was not thereby affected, so that the backward direction of 

 the head exercised no adverse influence on the assumption of the 

 erect attitude. 



Whilst in England the Bronze Age round barrows are numerous 

 and the burials in short cists are comparatively rare, in Scotlandthe 

 opposite prevails. Whilst part of Dr. Thurnam's aphorism, viz. *' long 

 barrows, long skulls," applies to both countries ; the remaining part, 

 " short barrows, short skulls," should be modified in Scotland to " short 

 cists, short or round skulls." 



The presence of dolichocephalic skulls in the interments of the 

 Bronze Age shows that the Neolithic people had commingled with the 

 brachycephalic race. Similarly the Bronze men, though subject to 

 successive invasions by Romans, Angles, and Scandinavians, have 

 persisted as a constituent element of the people of Great Britain. 

 The author has found a strong brachycephalic admixture in the 

 crania of modern Scots, in Fife, the Lothians, Peebles and as far 

 north as Shetland. In 116 specimens measured, 29, i.e. one-quarter, 

 had a length-breadth index 80 and upwards, and in five of these 

 the index was more than 85. 



The question has been much discussed whether the people of the 

 Polished Stone Age were descended from the men of the Ruder Stone 

 Age, or were separated from them by a distinct interval of time. The 

 latter view has been supported by Professor Boyd Dawkins, who con- 

 tends that there is a great zoological break between the fauna of the 

 Palaeolithic, Pleistocene period and that of the Neolithic Age, and that 

 the two periods are separated from each other by a revolution in 

 climate, geography and animal life.* 



Undoubtedly many large characteristic mammals of the Palaeolithic 

 fauna had entirely disappeared from Britain and western Europe, but 

 some nine or ten species, as the otter, wolf, wild cat, wild boar, stag, 

 roe, urus and horse, were continued into the Neolithic period; at 

 which time the dog, small ox, pig, goat and perhaps the sheep, as 

 is shown by their osseous remains, were also naturalised in Britain. 

 The continuity of our island with the Continent by intermediate 

 land, which existed during Palaeolithic times, also became severed, 

 and a genial temperate climate replaced more or less arctic conditions. 



Man, however, possesses a power of accommodation, and of 

 adapting himself to changes in his environment, such as is not 

 possessed by a mere animal. The locus of an animal is regulated 

 by the climate and the nature of the food, so that a change of climate, 

 which would destroy the special food on which an animal lives, would 



* Cave Hunting and Journal of Anthropological Institute, vol. xxiii., Feb. 

 1894. 



