By John Beddoe, M.D., LL.D., F.R.S., &c. 19 



The male villagers of Rotheiley were but G4 inches in mean stature, 

 and if those of Woodcuts and Woodyates are somewhat taller, 

 1654 millimeters=5 feet 51 inches by Manouvrier's and Pearson's 

 calculations, and 1670 nims. = 5 feet 5-7 inches by mine, this 

 superiority may be entirely due to the evideiit admixture of 

 foreign (legionary) blood. On the other hand, the inferiority of 

 the Eotherley men may be due to the oppression under which 

 they suffered, and to the abstraction for the army of the taller 

 men. The crania on the whole remind one of the neolithic types ; 

 but seem to shew the influence of a cross of the bronze race by a 

 moderate enlargement in breadth, and by the greater frequency 

 of cordate, pyriform, or coffin-shaped outline in the vertical aspect, 

 instead of the ovo-elliptic form ; and perhaps also by a greater 

 degree of prominence of the superciliary ridges. 



We may neglect the discussion of a Eoman element in the 

 population : it was present at Woodcuts, but is very unlikely to have 

 had any considerable and lasting influence on the general type. 



But the case of the Saxons — I would like to say Saxo-Frisians — 

 was altogether different. The evidence of the old burial grounds 

 of Wiltshire is alone sufficient to upset Pierson's ideas about " a 

 few boat-loads of barbarians." Both at Winkelbury, on Gen. 

 Pitt- Rivers' estate, and at West Harnham, close to Salisbury, are 

 to be found evidences of the presence of settlements of this people, 

 recognizable by their stature and head-form as well as by other 

 clear indications. The general average of stature of the Saxon 

 male throughout England, computed from the thigh-bone, was 

 about 1700 mm. (5 feet 6*9 inches) by Pearson's computation, or 

 1713 (5 feet 7 '4 inches) by that of Manouvrier. My own method 

 would bring out considerably higher results.^ The men of Harnham 

 were taller than the Saxon average : Pearson and Manouvrier put 

 them at 1738 and 1742 mm. (5 feet 8-3 inches and 5 feet 8-5 inches 

 respectively) ; biit the Winkelbury men averaged below the mean : 

 possibly in that frontier position they were more mixed with 

 British blood. The Saxon skull is more uniformly elliptic or 



' Somewhere about 5 feet 7^ to 8 inches. 



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