16 A Contribution to the Anthropology of Wiltshire. 



particular case the presence in some long barrows of skulls which 

 have evidently been intentionally fractured, makes it probable that 

 we do possess relics of the servile as well as of the ruling class ; 

 and these fractured crania do not appear to differ ethnically from 

 those of the more important personages buried with them. 



The epithet kumbekephalic (boat-headed or boat -shaped), though 

 accurately applied to some of Daniel Wilson's primeval inhabitants 

 of what is now Scotland, has not held its place in anthropological 

 nomenclature as a term of general application to the neolithic 

 population of Britain. We are usually content with describing 

 these as having been dolichukephalic, i.e., long-headed, which im- 

 plies that the proportion borne by the maximum breadth to the 

 maximum length of the skull is not greater than 75 to 100, or 

 three-fourths ; and this proportion we call the cranial, or, less 

 correctly, the kephalic index.^ 



We conclude, then, that during the period of polished stone 

 implements — the period of Stonehenge and of the long or chambered 

 and galleried barrows — Wiltshire was occupied by a tolerably 

 homogeneous population. They were of moderate or rather small 

 stature, the women perhaps rather short in proportion : they were 

 well-made, though the hardships of barbarian life may have told 

 upon the form and development of the long bones. They were 

 pretty surely dark-haired as a rule, and often also dark -eyed ; but 

 as to these points we have nothing like positive evidence, though 

 Strabo does say that tlie Britons he saw were darker as well as 

 taller than the Gauls. These, however, may not have been largely 

 of neolithic blood ; and we form our conjecture as to the prevailing 

 complexion of the neolithic folk mainly from that of such of our 

 .contemporaries as may be supposed to be near akin to them. 



Their skulls, such at least as have come down to us, are not only 

 long but of great size, and their internal capacity is as great 

 as has been found in any race of men. They are generally thick 

 and heavy ; but that fact may be due to the survival, so to speak, 

 of the more strongly constituted bones, as less liable to decay. 



' The term " kephalic," in this connexion, should be, but seldom is, reserved 

 for the proportions in the living head, which are not quite the same. 



