DESCRIPTION OF FIGURES OF SKULLS. 565 



head to the middle of the distal articular surface, has been taken as 

 being- 19'5 to the stature as 100, as given by Professor Humphry, 

 Human Skeleton, p. 108, 1858. 



As regards the sex of the skulls described and figured, there can, 

 it is believed, be little ambiguity even irrespectively of any 

 indications which the long bones and pelvis may have afforded. 

 These indications have of course always been taken into account, 

 where it was possible to do so, in the determination of the sex, not 

 only of each figured and described skull, but also of every other 

 skull mentioned in this book which has been sent to me for 

 verification. In some cases 1 it may be unsafe, in the absence 



1 The skull of an Anglo-Saxon woman found by me at Frilford [Archaeologia, 

 vol. xvii. p. 440, 1870], buried with the insignia of the female sex, would I think be 

 referred to the male sex by most craniologists if the bones of the trunk and limbs (to 

 say nothing of the archaeological surroundings) had not been available for reference 

 and comparison, as fortunately they were and are in the University Museum, 

 ' No. xxii. Jan. 6, 1869.' Similarly I have more than once had skulls of savage races 

 put into my hands which I had every reason to believe had belonged to females, but 

 which, from a consideration of the skull-characters alone, I should have supposed to 

 have belonged to men. As I have elsewhere observed, however (see Journal of 

 Anthropological Institute, vol. v. p. 123, October 1875), female skulls of savage races 

 are by no means always thus similar to male either in size, texture, or contour ; the 

 class of cases indeed characterized by similarity or subequality is perhaps only a little 

 more numerous, at all events amongst priscan skulls, than the class characterized by 

 disproportionate smallness. As Welcker has observed (Arehiv fur Anthropologie, 

 vol. i. p. 127, 1866), the cases where ambiguity arises are cases in which female skulls 

 have assumed, or must be supposed to have assumed, male characters ; it is only very 

 rarely that we are in any danger of supposing a skull to be female which is really 

 male. On the other hand, the words of His (Crania Helvetica, p. 9, 1864), ' Die 

 Geschlectsbestimmung nach dem blossen Ansehen f iihrt allzuleicht zu Willkurhrlich- 

 keiten als dass man sich darauf verlassen konnte,' seem to me to rate the value of an 

 unassisted cranioscopy in the question of sex a little lower than it really deserves. 

 And the argument by which he supports this view, drawn from the fact that skulls 

 which had been classed by competent observers as undoubtedly female could never- 

 theless be proved to have come from an interment on a battlefield, is by no means 

 convincing. The German woman was told (see Tacitus, Germania, p. 18), on the 

 occasion of her marriage, by tangible symbols as well as by mere words, ' venire se 

 laborum periculorumque sociam, idem in pace, idem in prcelio passuram ausuramque.' 

 The same community of risks, we are told by numerous ancient writers, e. g. 

 Diodorus 1 , Strabo 2 , Plutarch 3 , and others, was run by both sexes amongst Celtic 

 tribes ; and I find it recorded of a Celtic invasion *, which took place little more than 



1 Diodorus, v. 32. At 8e yvvcutces ruv Ta\aruiv ov poiov rot's /j.fytOf<ri 

 rots dvSpdffiv elaiv d\Xd KO.I rats d\Kais fvdfu\\ot. 



2 Strabo, vii. 2. 3. 'EGos 5e n TUJV Kin/Spew dirjyovrrai roiovrov on rats ywailv 

 avrSiv avarparevovcrais Traprj/coXovdovv irpo^vrfis, 



3 Plutarch, Marius, 27. The details of the slaughters of Aquae Sextiae and Vercellae 

 are too well known to need quoting : ' iiec minus cum uxoribus eorum pugna quani 

 cum ipsis fuit/ says Florus, iii. 3. See also Ammianus Marcellinus, xv. c. 12. 



4 ' The Kingdome's Weekly Intelligencer,' Friday, March 31, 1643 ; a Parlia- 

 mentarian newspaper, quoted in a ' Letter on the Discovery of the Skeletons at 

 Barber's Bridge,' by W. H. Price, Esq., M.P. Gloucester, 1868. 



