UPON THE SE11IES OF PREHISTORIC CRANIA. 649 



often the case in this variety of cranium, the supraciliary ridges are 

 confluent across the middle line, gives a very characteristic appear- 

 ance to these skulls. Just as the line of the os frontis in these 

 cases lies some way within the line which the contour of the supra- 

 ciliary ridges would describe if produced, so the line of the posterior 

 half of the parietals lies often well within the line which the 

 produced contour of the upper occipital squama would give us. 

 This peculiarity is ' die facettirte Absetzung des Hinterhaupts s 

 spoken of as eminently characteristic of the Hohberg type of skull 

 by Professors His and Riitimeyer. It is however, though common, 

 not by any means constant in otherwise typical dolicho-cephalic 

 skulls of the stone age, as might have been expected, the occipital 

 segments proper, both of brain and of skull, being exceedingly 

 variable l in development ; and the ' capsulares Hinterhanpt,' as 

 pointed out above, p. 589, or as seen in such a skull as the one 

 figured xiv. PI. xii. Cran. Brit, from Wetton Hill Barrow, being 

 by no means rare in brachy-cephalic series. 



Whatever differences may exist amongst craniographers as to the 

 existence of sexual differences in the matter of the ' length-breadth 

 index,' there is no room for questioning the fact that the height in 

 women's skulls 2 , very variable though this measurement is in 



1 Aeby, Schadelf ormen, p. 12 ; Welcker, Wachsthum und Ban, pp. 36, 46, 65, 141 ; 

 Huschke, I. c. pp. 19, 21, 94, 96, 98, 152, 153, 156; B. Davis, Thesaurus Cran. p. 351 ; 

 Gall. Syst. Nerv. iii. 160 ; Virchow, Gesamm. Abhandl. p. 916; Cleland, Phil. Trans. 

 1870, p. 132; Wundt, Physiolog. Psychologie, 1873, p. 229, citing H. Wagner; 

 Weisbach, Arch, far Anthrop. iii. 74, 75, 81 ; Broca, Rev. Anthr. ii. 1, 1873, pp. 30-32. 

 Very conflicting statements have been put forward as to the relative development in 

 males and females of the posterior part of the cerebrum. I incline to hold that in 

 most dolicho-cephalic races what Huschke calls the ZiviscJien-Scheitel-Hirn qua in 

 fossis cerebri ossis occipitis liegt ' is absolutely sub-equal to and therefore relatively 

 greater than the homologous segment in males. As against this may be set the greater 

 relative length of the basis cranii in males of our own as of other species. This is a 

 difference however which amounts at most to about two millimeters, an excess insuffi- 

 cient to counterbalance that frequently observable in the female interparietal region. 

 On the other hand, in typically brachy-cephalic races this absolutely and relatively 

 shorter basis cranii and the absolute equality of the male and female intertuberal 

 diameters in the parietal region do not rarely give female skulls a higher length - 

 breadth index than male skulls of the same race possess. 



2 This point is well put forward by Weisbach, Archiv fur Anth. iii. 1. 66, 1868, in 

 his account of the German female skull, which in this particular admits of wider 

 application : ' Die Hohe unserer Weiberschadel von der Mitte des vorderen Randes des 

 Grossen Hinterhauptloches zum Scheitel welche im Mittel nur 125 Mm. in den 

 einzelmen Fallen 118 bis 139 Mm. betragt ist wie alle bisberigen Maasse weniger 

 veriinderlich (16'8 Proc.), als beim Manne (21'8 Proc.), jedoch unter den drei 

 Hauptdimensionen den Meisten Schwankungen zuganglich, die Breite den geringsten ; 

 wahrend am mannlichen Schadel die Lange die geringsten, Breite und Hohe fast 

 die gleichen individuellen Schwankungen erleiden. Das Minimum der Hohe haben 



