EGGARDUX HILL. 33 



oval type' of skull, absolutely identical with those skulls which 

 General Pitt- Rivers has found at Woodcuts and elsewhere, 

 belonging to the aboriginal population, the small dark Iberian 

 stock which were in this country in the remote age of polished 

 stone. Thus we can at once realise that the people who lived 

 here before the Roman times were a small dark race, by no 

 means barbarians, but farmers, iron smelters, spinners and 

 weavers." It is rather disconcerting to mid our Professor 

 ignoring the whole of the Bronze Age and cpnquest of Neolithic 

 Man by Celtic invaders. But there is one fact for which 

 ample evidence can be found to-day, and that is, the persistence 

 of this Iberian stock in the county of Dorset. It was not 

 extirpated by the Bronze Age Celts. 



What General Pitt- Rivers has to say in the matter will be 

 found in his Excavations in Cranbonic Chase, Vol. II, pp. 62 sq. 

 He refers to the investigations of Dr. Thurnam which showed 

 that the long barrows contained, besides relics of the New 

 Stone Age, the bones of a particular race. Their height 

 averaged 5ft. 5-4in. Their skulls were long, the proportion 

 of the breadth to the length being as 71 to 100 much longer 

 than that of any race now inhabiting Europe. 



In the round barrows the average height of skeletons was 

 5ft. 8.4in., and the proportion of breadth to length of skull 

 being 81 to 100 a rounder head than that of any race now 

 inhabiting Europe. These are the Celts whom Caesar speaks 

 of as the Belgae. The first invaders of this race were the 

 Goidels. Afterwards came the Brythons. The Durotrigae, who 

 may have given their name to our county, belonged to the 

 long-headed Iberian race. Their skeletons were found in the 

 British villages excavated on the Rushmore estate, often buried 

 in refuse pits where the ground was easier to dig than in 

 the undisturbed chalk. The bones showed that their owners 

 had been afflicted with rheumatoid arthritis, or " poor man's 

 gout." The race was clearly not exterminated by the Celts, 

 but perhaps it was reduced to slavery and badly fed. The 

 average height of these village skeletons is three inches less 



