DE. J. TIIUENAM ON SYNOSTOSIS OP THE CRANIAL BONES. 257 



the Long Barrows of the ancient Britons.* There is, however, one 

 cranium figured and described in the Crania Britannica (PL XXYI, 

 50), which was obtained by me from the chambered Long Barrow at 

 "West Kennet, the narrow and keel-shaped roof of which, as in two or 

 three others I have seen, may be in part due to obliteration of the 

 sagittal suture, commencing after birth. After describing this, I may 

 call attention to two other skulls which have been thought to be de^ 

 formed by synostosis, but which seem to me to owe nothing of their 

 dolichocephalism to that efiacement of the sutures which is present 

 in them. This I believe to be of the prematurely senile description, 

 and to date from a time long after the brain- and skull-form have been 

 fixed and determined. 



The skull from the sepulchral chamber at West Kennet is th? t 

 of a young man of about 30 years of age. With the exception of 

 the terminal parts of the coronal, the coronal, squamous, and lateral 

 longitudinal sutures are open and even gaping ; w^hilst the sagittal 

 and apex of the lambdoid are almost completely ossified. Dividing the 

 sagittal suture into the five portions described by Professor AYelcker, 

 the obliteration is most complete, and leaves scarcely a trace in the 

 fourth or interforaminal ; most nearly approaches the same degree of 

 eft'acement in the third or central division ; is less complete in the 

 fifth or occipital, though still far advanced ; less still in the second ; 

 and least of all in the first or frontal division, where it abuts on the 

 gaping coronal, and is quite distinct. A carina corresponds to the 

 line of the sagittal suture, especially in its three central divisions, 

 where the obliteration is most complete. The summit of the 

 parietals on each side of the obliterated sagittal has a nodose, 

 eburneated character indicative of a certain degree of hyperostosis 

 such as is observed in many scapho cephalic and other synostotic 

 crania. The right parietal foramen is alone present, and is of 



* In an ancient Gaulish skull from the dohnen of Du Val (Oise), preserved in 

 the Gallery of Anthro]wlogy of the Museum of Natural History at Paris (No, 169) I 

 detected com])lete synostosis of the parietals apparently congenital. The skull is 

 that of a man of about 45 years. The coronal suture is distinct and open, the 

 lambdoid much obliterated; there is no trace whatever of the sagittal, but consider- 

 able rugosity in the line where it is usually seen. The traces of the left parietal 

 foramen ai-e trifling in extent ; there are none of the right. The form of this skull 

 is more dolichocephalous than that of the other male skulls found with it, and 

 relatively to their average type it may be regarded as a long skull ("Te). The 

 ancient Gaulish skulls differ from the British, in usually presenting a mixture of 

 the two types, long iuid short, in the same tomb. 



