UPON THE SERIES OF PREHISTORIC CRANIA. 651 



skull, and especially of the male skull. The sides of the pentagon de- 

 scribed by the skull's contour are in such skulls (see * Langton Wold, 

 ii. 1,' pp. 136, 602) either quite vertical or even converge a little 

 from the level of the tubera parietalia downwards, whilst they slope 

 upwards with well-marked obliquity to a mesial vertical carina along 

 the sagittal line. The tubera parietalia in * ill-filled ' male skulls 

 are relatively more prominent than in the better developed, in 

 which their site may be only very faintly marked ; they are 

 usually more distinct, whilst the mesial vertical carina is less 

 distinct, its position indeed being only feebly indicated, in female 

 skulls (see ' Sherburn Wold, vii. 1,' pp. 146, 608 supra). It is 

 in the norma occipitalis as well as in the norma verticalis that the 

 premature obliteration of the sutures to which Dr. Thurnam drew 

 attention in the Natural History Review of 1865 (see also Virchow, 

 Archiv fur Anthrop. v. p. 535, 1872) as being very frequent in this 

 type of cranium is specially obvious; and not rarely, though by 

 no means universally, in the skulls of individuals in quite early 

 stages of adult life (see pp. 614, 615 supra}. It is rare in the 

 brachy-cephalic series to see any traces of such anchylosis until 

 many other senile changes have set in with advancing years. 



In many of the stone age dolicho-cephali, by combining the 

 view given in the norma verticalis with that given in the norma 

 occipitalis, we realise to ourselves very vividly the force of the 

 epithets * scapho-cephalic ' and * kumbe-cephalic ' (see p. 615 supra) 

 which have been applied to them. The keeled mesial ridge and the 

 lateral wall-sidedness given in the back view are often combined 

 with a rapid tapering, both forwards and backwards, from the plane 

 of the anteriorly situated parietal tubera, which suggests the 

 comparison to a long and narrow boat which the epithets just 

 quoted embody. On the other hand, it must be said that the 

 contour presented by these skulls in the norma verticalis does, whilst 

 always retaining the length in a relation of advantage to the 

 breadth, yet vary considerably, as the other epithets 'birnformig,' 

 pear-shaped, ' keulenformig,' club-shaped ( = ' elongate oval'), and 

 coffin-shaped ( = ' cuneate oval ') by various writers applied to them 

 plainly indicate. In other words, these skulls when viewed in this 

 as also in other aspects are seen, whilst remaining always dolicho- 

 cephalous, to vary considerably as to being well or ill-filled, globular 

 or pinched, phsenozygous or aphsenozygous, rounded off or angular 

 in the plane of greatest breadth, and finally to some extent even as 

 to the relative position of this plane in the long axis of the skull. 



