TRANSACTIONS OF THE SECTIONS. 143 
the British Association. It is extremely desirable, however, that these should be 
compared with similar investigations carried on in other countries, both to test their 
general application, and to ascertain what evidence is recoverable in regard to the 
movements of the earliest nomade tribes of Europe. 
Professor Nillson’s conclusions may be thus briefly stated :—At a period prior to 
the latest geological changes in Sweden, while the Bos primigenius and other of 
the long extinct herbivorous animals existed in the country, it was possessed by a 
human population in a very low state of civilization, ignorant of the metallurgic 
arts, constructing their weapons and implements of horn and stone, and living chiefly 
by fishing and hunting. The skeletons of this aboriginal race still exist in the ear- 
liest class of Barrows. Their skulls are described by Professor Nillson as short 
(the brachy-cephalic of Retzius), with prominent parietal tubers, and broad and flat- 
tened occiput. 
This was succeeded by a superior race, with a cranium of a more lengthened oval 
form, and prominent and narrow occiput. 
The third race, which Professor Nillson considers as of Celtic origin, appears to 
have introduced bronze, the earliest working metal, into the country ; and the Celtic 
population is not supposed by him to have been displaced by the true Swea, or mo- 
dern Scandinavians, till some time in the sixth century. 
With relation to the primitive inhabitants of Britain, we know that a Celtic people 
appear to have existed here at the earliest period in which we have any authentic 
historical information respecting them. But history carries us back only a very 
short way, and its whole indications seem to point to the Celtz as intruders within 
a comparatively recent historic era; while the tumuli and primitive relics abound- 
ing in Britain and the whole north of Europe, furnish unmistakeable evidence of the 
presence of a human population at a much more remote period. Pursuing the mode 
of inquiry into the primitive races of Scotland which has already been successfully 
employed by continental ethnologists, the following Table of Cranial Measurements 
supplies data derived from an examination of thirty-nine skulls, a number too few to 
admit of the assumption of dogmatic conclusions, but sufficient at least for an ini- 
tiatory step in this interesting inquiry in relation to the British aborigines. The 
system of measurement employed is chiefly that adopted by Dr. Morton in his 
*Crania Americana’ (Anatomical Measurements, p. 249). Four additional mea- 
surements are added, marked (*), as in some cases preferable, or supplying more cer= 
tain data in the imperfect and decayed state of the skulls. The proportions of two 
Mexican skulls, described by Dr. Morton as superior specimens of the ancient race, 
are also inserted for the sake of comparison. 
» Of the crania in the annexed Table, it may suffice in this very brief abstract to state, 
that the direct archeological evidence, derived from the presence of rude stone weapons, 
the form of cists, the presence or absence of metallic weapons or implements, pottery, 
&c., seem to justify the order of classification. 
The conclusions which these data appear to suggest are, that the earliest primitive 
Scottish race differed entirely from the earliest Scandinavian race as described by 
Professor Nillson, being rather Dolicho-cephalic, or perhaps more correctly Cymbo- 
cephalic,—to adopt a term which I venture to suggest as most appropriate to the pe- 
culiar boat-like shape of the crania. These are long and equally narrow in the fore= 
head and occiput; while the whole head, when seen in situ, is small in proportion 
to the skeleton. 
The second race decidedly corresponds with the Brachy-cephalic of Retzius, 
though in the few examples I have been able to obtain the cerebral development ap- 
pears considerably greater than in the primitive race of Scandinavia. Nearly all 
ethnologists are agreed in assigning to the true Celtic type of cranium an interme- 
diate form, shorter than the true Dolicho-cephalic, and longer than the Brachy- 
cephalic. This conclusion is confirmed by the examples adopted in the Table of 
Measurements, with the exception of No. 27, a so-called typical Celtic skull, in the 
Edinburgh Phrenological Museum, introduced here for the sake of comparison. 
Even after obtaining the proper crania it is difficult to determine the most trust 
worthy elements of comparative proportion. The relative proportions of the parietal 
diameter ; and of the inter-mastoid line, measured from the upper root of the zygo- 
