187 



Poi-tions of as many as ten or twelve skulls were sent to Dr. Thurnam, 

 and his report upon them will follow tliis paper. It may not, how- 

 ever, be out of place here to mention that his observation of "a 

 greater number of the teeth, namely two or three incisors and two 

 or three molars, have been lost during life in the case of the most 

 perfect of the Nympsfield skulls than in almost any other British 

 skull he has examined,"* is curiously confirmed as to the rough usage 

 some at least of the occupants of these chambers must have received, by 

 the finding of a portion of a rib whose overlapping ends proclaimed 

 a former fracture. "Two vertebrae were anchylosed,'' says Dr. Payne, 

 of Stroud. 



II. The Bones and Teeth of inferior animals comprised not a few 

 remnants of the Ox, Hog, Dog, and Birds. Some, at least, of these 

 creatures were the undoubted food of the ancient Britons; and it 

 is conjectured, from the want of horizontality in the worn down Imman 

 teeth, that animal food was indeed their chief subsistence. 



III. The small fragment of Pottery is of the usual brownish or black 

 iinbaked clay of the period. This fragment is scored with the peculiar 



impressed marks so common in ancient British Jictilia. It is curious that 

 only two small bits of Pottery should have been found. Is this to be 

 attributed to such matters having been taken away at the former 

 exhumation ? In the Tumuli of Wiltshire, when they have not been 

 rifled, some very fine urns often occur. Some of these are now to be 

 seen in the possession of Mr. Cunnington, of Devizes, whose grandfather, 

 in conjunction with Sir R. C. Hoare, opened so many barrows in the 

 rich archaic county of Wilts. 



IV. The Flint flakes, though in themselves so insignificant, are yet 

 important to observe, as Nympsfield is quite out of the way of the Flint 

 drifts; and again, rude a-s are our specimens, I have no doubt that 

 they got their present form by artificial means, and are either flakes 



* I do not suppose the teeth have been knocked out, l>ut lost from caries, abscess, 

 or other disease. (J.T. ) 



