PHYSICAL ETHNOLOGY. 267 



the special views derived from the study of ancient Scottish crania, were sub- 

 mitted to the ethnological section of the British Association in 1850;* and the 

 general facts and deductions in reference to their ethnical significance are 

 embraced in one of the sections of the above-named work. The subject con- 

 tinued to occupy my attention so long as I remained in Scotland, and I availed 

 myself of every opportunity for adding to the rare materials for its illustration. 

 While thus engaged my attention was repeatedly drawn to the unsymmetrical 

 proportions of ancient brachycephalic skulls, and to their peculiar truncated 

 form, accompanied, as in the Mound skull of the Scioto valley, by an abrupt 

 flattening of the occiput, which I soon began to suspect was due to artificial 

 causes. Since then the facilities derived from repeated examinations of Ameri- 

 can collections have familiarized me not only with the extreme varieties of form 

 of which the human head is susceptible under the influence of artificial com- 

 pression, but also with the less-marked changes undesignedly resulting from 

 such seemingly slight causes as the constant pressure of the Indian cradle-board. 

 The examination and measurement of several, hundred specimens of American 

 crania, as well as of the living head in representatives of various Indian tribes, 

 have also satisfied me not only of the existence of dolichocephalic and brachy- 

 cephalic heads as tribal or national characteristics, but of the common occurrence 

 of the same exaggerated brachycephalic form, accompanied with the vertical 

 or obliquely flattened occiput, which had seemed to be characteristic of the 

 crania of the Scottish tumuli. There are indeed ethnical differences apparent, 

 as in the frontal and malar bones, but so far as the posterior region of the head 

 is concerned, both appear to (exhibit the same undesigned deformation resulting 

 from the process of nursing still practiced among many Indian tribes. 



The light thus thrown on the habits of the British mother of prehistoric 

 times, by skull-forms found in ancient barrows, is replete with interest, from the 

 sugges'ions it furnishes of ancient customs hitherto undreamt of. But it has 

 also another and higher value to the craniologist, from its thus showing that 

 some, at least, of the peculiar forms hitherto accepted as ethnical distinctions, 

 may be more correctly traced to causes operating after birth. 



The first example of this peculiar cranial conformation which attracted my 

 attention, as possibly traceable to other causes than inherited characteristics, or 

 mUural deviations from the typical skull form of an extinct race, occurred on 

 the opening of a stone cist at Juniper Green, near Edinburgh, on the 17th of 

 May, 1S.31. A slight elevation probably marked the nearly levelled b.irrow 

 which had long covered the catacomb and its enclosed memorials of a remote 

 pa 4, within sight of the Scottish capital. A shallow grave, formed of unhewn 

 slabs of sandstone, enclosed a space measuring three feet eleven inches in hai^-th, 

 by two feet one inch in breadth at the head, and one foot eleven inches at foot. 

 The joints fitted to each other with sufficient regularity to admit of their being 

 closed by a few stone chips inserted at the junction, after which they appeared 

 to have been carefully cemented with wet loam or clay. The slab which cov- 

 ered the whole projected over the sides, so as effectually to protect the sepul- 

 chral chamber from any infiltraaon of earth. It lay in a sandy soil, within 

 little more than two feet of the surface ; but it had probably been covered until 

 a comparatively recent period by a greater depth of earth, as its site was higher 

 than the surrounding surface, and possibly thus marked the traces of the nearly 

 Ifvelled tumulus. Slight as this elevation was, it had proved sufficient to pre- 

 vc-nt the lodgment of water, and hence the cist was found perfectly free from 

 damp. Within this a male skeleton lay on its left side. The arms appeared to 

 have been folded over the breast, and the knees drawn up so as to touch the 

 elbows. The head had been supported by a flat water-Avorn stone for its pillow ; 

 but from this it had fallen to the bottom of the cist, on its being detached by 



^ British Association Keport, 1850, p. 142. 



