68 DANIEL WILSON ON THE ARTISTIC 



ditiou of the latter ouly repeats that of Europe's infancy. But when the contents of the 

 barrows, cairns, and grave-mounds of prehistoric Europe are brought into comparison with 

 those of the New World, the analogy fails in so far as imitative art is concerned. If, 

 indeed, we leave behind us the age of cromlechs, kistvaeus, cairus and barrows ; and seek 

 to estimate aright the startling disclosures of artistic ability pertaining to the far more 

 ancient men of Europe's Mammoth and Reindeer Periods, it is otherwise. But, before 

 considering the wonderfully definite glimpses thereby furnished of tribes of rude yet 

 skilful hunters of that post-glacial world, it may be of some hel^î, in the comparisons 

 which they suggest, to recall impressions derived from a study of that Stone Period, when 

 the natives of the British Islands appear to have approximated, in many respects, to the 

 Red Indian nomad of the American forest. 



One little-heeded point of evidence of this correspondence, to which I long since drew 

 attention, is to be found in the traces of artificial modification of the head-form in ancient 

 British crania ; a comparison of which with skulls, recovered from Indian grave-mounds of 

 this continent, helps to throw light on the habits and social life of the British Islands in 

 prehistoric times. In illustration of this I may refer to an exploration, now of old date. I'l 

 the early summer of 1851, 1 learned of the accidental discovery of a stone cist, in trenching 

 a garden at Juniper Grreen, a few miles distant from Edinburgh, and immediately pro- 

 ceeded to the spot. There, under a slightly elevated knoll — the remains, in all probability, of 

 the ancient barrow,— lay a rude sarcophagus of unhewn sandstone, within which was a 

 male skeleton, still in good preservation. The body had been laid on its left side, with the 

 arms folded over the breast, and the knees drawn up so as to touch the elbows. A flat 

 waterworn stone had formed the pillow, from which the skull had rolled to the bottom of 

 the cist. Above the right shoulder stood a gracefully formed clay vase, containing only a 

 little sand and black dust, the remains, it may be presumed, of food which it originally 

 contained when deposited there by affectionate hands, in some old, forgotten century. It 

 was recovered uninjured, and is now deposited, along with the skull, in the Archaeological 

 Museum of Edinburgh. 



The primitive grave, thus discovered within sight of the Scottish capital, has a curious 

 interest in many ways, as a link connecting the present with a remote past. But the spe- 

 cial point which throws light on the habits of the ancient race, is a parieto-occipital 

 flattening, such as is of common occurence in skulls recovered from the ossuaries and grave- 

 mounds of this continent. This feature is clearly traceable to the use of the cradle-board 

 in infancy. The mode of nursing the Indian papoose, by bandaging it on a cradle-board, 

 is specially adapted to the vicissitudes of a nomad forest life. The infant is carried safely, 

 slung on the mother's back, leaving her hands free ; and in the pauses of her journey, or 

 when engaged in field-work, it can be laid aside, or suspended from the branch of a tree, 

 without risk of injury. But one result of this custom is that the soft bones of the skull 

 are subjected to a continuous pressure in one direction during the whole term of suckling, 

 which is necessarily protracted, among a nomad people, much longer than is usual in 

 settled communities ; and to this cause is undoubtedly traceable the occipital flattening of 

 many skulls recovered from European cists and barrows. Dr. L. A. Grosse, after discussing 

 in his " Essai sur les déformations artificielles du Crâne " certain artificial modifications of 

 the skull, of common occurrence among the aborigines of this continent, thus proceeds : 

 " Passant dans Tancieut continent, ne tourdons-uoiis pas à reconnaître que ce berceau plat 



