688 GENERAL REMARKS 



Weighton which first opened my eyes to the questionableness of 

 Dr. Thurnam's theory. But, secondly, the broken surfaces in the 

 skulls from Ebberston and Rodmarton have both their tables 

 broken in the same or very nearly the same plane, and though an 

 incision of this kind can be effected in a living skull by a vertically 

 delivered blow, as it is not rarely effected in a dead and buried skull 

 by a spade, the immense majority of wounds which we find on skulls 

 known to have been struck by sword or axe have been inflicted in 

 the way of oblique impact, as proved by the prismatic chip of bone 

 which they have forced up out of its proper relations. It is well 

 known that it is common enough even for a well-directed thrust 

 with 'that queen of weapons the bayonet 5 to be deflected into 

 innocuous obliquity even by such a surface as that of a rib ; much 

 more then would a stone-weapon be liable to be deflected from the 

 denser and more resistent surface of the more mobile skull. Hence 

 if these prehistoric crania had really been battered by prehistoric 

 weapons we should expect to find a very large proportion of 

 obliquely received wounds upon them. Just the reverse of this 

 is the case with the fragmentary skulls which Dr. Thurnam and 

 I myself have obtained from the long barrows both of the cremation 

 and the non-cremation kinds. Numerous as are the fragments into 

 which these skulls are broken up, it is rare for the line of fracture 

 to pass otherwise than vertically through both tables, or to leave 

 the inner table either projecting beyond the plane of the broken 

 surface of the outer one or broken away for a greater square area 

 than that lamina. The appearance presented by an aggregate of 

 such skull-fragments is not unlike the aggregate of fragments re- 

 sulting from the discharge of a firearm, pistol or other, so close 

 to the base of the skull as to subject its vault to the sudden and 

 enormous tension resulting from the explosion of the gunpowder. 

 The results of such an injury may be seen in the multitudinously 

 fractured skull No. 2902 A in the Museum of the Royal College of 

 Surgeons of England, and will be found described at p. 64 of Mr. 

 Heath's Jacksonian Prize Essay for 1867, published 1872. The 

 instantaneous tension of the explosion may be seen in this case to 

 have produced a great number of fragments with their broken sur- 

 faces even and vertical ; but what such violent expansion produces 

 momentarily on a tough skull, that, compression or other strain due 

 to the settling of the soil, or indeed shock from disturbance in 

 secondary burial, may very readily be understood to be competent 

 to produce on a skull rendered fragile by the lapse of centuries. The 



