15 



^ Contribution to tijc ^ntljvo^fologir of 



lilt. 



By John Beddoe, M.D., LL.D., F.R.S., &c. 



I intend this paper to be simply what its title imports. That 

 is to say that it will deal only with a limited portion of the subject, 

 that portion which I have specially studied, and which other 

 students do not seem to have cared to follow up. 



I shall say little about the very earliest races — those which 

 preceded the neolithic folk. I am one of those who believe that 

 the blood of their descendants still flows in British veins, and that 

 their types are recognizable in certain parts of the British Isles ; 

 but I cannot claim to identify them in Wiltshire with any certainty. 

 Such types are Huxley's Riverbed, common in Ireland, Boyd- 

 Dawkins's Perth-y-chwarew one, and my Mongoloid, surviving in 

 "Wales. My Africanoid or Atlantic type, related to Sergi's 

 acmonoid, may have been an element in the neolithic population, 

 and accordingly does occur in Wiltshire, but not frequently. As to 

 the age of the small and low type which Dr. Henry Bird dis- 

 tinguished as derived from small round barrows, wherefore he 

 called his examples " tump skulls," I will not offer an opinion. 



The dominant race in this county, as indeed in at least the 

 greater part of Britain, during the neolithic period, was that 

 styled Kumbekephalic (boat-shaped-headed), Ijy Sir Daniel Wilson, 

 who was the first to distinguish it ; though it was our own Thurnam. 

 who converted Wilson's conjecture into something like a certainty, 

 and who formulated the famous rule, " long barrows, long skulls, 

 round barrows, round skulls." ^ I say the dominant race, because 

 it is a familiar fact that the remains of the servile class are not 

 always admitted into the cemeteries of their rulers ; but in this 



' This rule holds good for Wiltshire, so far as I am aware ; but Mr. Mortimer 

 discovered some striking exceptions to it in the East Riding. 



