DE. J. THURWAM ON SYNOSTOSIS OF THE CRANIAL PONES. 267 



kept up. I have now examined seven artificially flattened crania ot 

 Chinook and other flat-headed Indians, and in all of them the sagit- 

 tal and coronal sutures are in a great measure obliterated. The 

 lambdoidal suture is not so frequently afiected. The lateral lines of 

 sutures (the spheno-frontal, spheno-parietal, and squamous) not 

 being subjected to the pressure, are but little altered."* 



My own observations of the state of the sutures in skulls dis- 

 torted by artificial means are quite in agreement with those here 

 quoted. But though bandaging does cause obliteration of the sutures 

 concurrently with the annular deformations which immediately result 

 from it, it does not appear to have been the cause of either the one 

 or the other in the dolichocephalous skulls from the Long Barrows. 

 Since the publication, ten years ago, of Dr. Grosse's work " On Arti- 

 ficial Deformations of the Skull," there has been too much disposi- 

 tion to attribute every peculiarity of cranial form to that cause. I 

 have myself, on different occasions, and up to a somewhat recent 

 period, fallen into this error- Minor degrees of saddle-formed con- 

 traction in the coronal and temporal regions, are not only to be 

 observed in the ancient British crania, which are more particularly 

 considered in this paper, but likewise in those of Negroes and in 

 many other races, especially such as are natui'ally dolichocephalous. 



After much consideration and inquiry, the conclusion I have 

 come to is that this contraction is altogether normal, and connected 

 with the natural form and course of development of the brain. It 

 corresponds almost precisely with the situation of the great fissure 

 of E/olando, which divides tlie anterior from the middle cerebral 

 lobes ; and just in proportion as these neighbouring lobes may tend 

 to assume a full and rounded form, so must be the amount of the 

 corresponding intervening depression which is communicated to the 

 surface of the skull. In like manner, other depressions which are 

 observed on the cranial surface may represent the interspaces 

 between other lobes of the brain ; as that between the temporal and 

 the posterior and the upper surface of the cerebellum. Such, I 

 think, is the explanation of certain depressions on several ancient 

 Gaulish skulls, from the cavern of Orrouy (Oise), ^hich are pre- 

 served in the Museum of the Society of Anthropology of Paris, and 

 of which casts, through the liberality of M. P. Broca, have been 

 presented to several collections in this country. 



* Cranial Deformities, &c. Nat. Hist. Review, 1864, p. 106. 



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