UPON THE SERIES OF PREHISTORIC CRANIA. 705 



consideration, even in the absence of any personal acquaintance 

 with present savage life, that the dwellings of the races we are 

 dealing with must have been dark and crowded to secure warmth, 

 and that the female portion of the tribe would have a larger 

 share of these as of other depressing influences to contend with 

 than the males. And the effects of these influences would show 

 themselves as surely and clearly in the teeth, a system most closely 

 correlated with the general state of the whole organism, as in their 

 feebler trunk and limb bones l . The great frequency of the per- 

 foration in the olecranic fossa of female prehistoric humeri, noticed 

 by Broca (Memoires, ii. p. 366, and Rev. d'Anthropologie, 1873, ii. 

 p. 15) and instanced by me (Journ. Anth. Inst., v. pp. 149-159, 

 161169) in four cases from the Swell long barrows, is to be simi- 

 larly explained ; and, conversely, its absence in the Cro-Magnon and 

 Mentone skeletons, which belonged to the ' giants ' of tradition. 



I have not, though constantly careful in looking for irregu- 

 larities in dentition, found many in either of the prehistoric series 

 which I have examined. Three of retardation of one or both 

 bicuspids with retention of the second milk molar in persons of 

 fourteen to fifteen years of age ('Jarrett, cxix,' p. 328, 'Money 

 Hill, cxxi. 3,' p. 330, and Flixton, Ixxi. 1,' p. 275) may be 

 mentioned and compared with the similar cases given at p. 237 of 

 the second edition of the System of Dental Surgery by J. Tomes 

 and C. S. Tomes. Another of the retention of a wisdom tooth, 

 with its upper surface only just visible above the alveolus in an 

 aged female skull, ' Cowlam, Ivii. 3/ p. 216, may be mentioned 

 as exemplifying another kind of retardation which is perhaps more 

 common among women than men, as is also, I incline to think, the 

 entire obsolescence of the wisdom teeth. 



1 The slovenly habits of savages, carnivorous as well as vegetarian, by allowing of 

 the admixture of sand with their food, furnish a very efficient means for wearing down 

 of the teeth. But the inland tribes, who, like the outcasts described in the book of 

 Job (chap. xxx. ver. 3-8), 'cut up mallows by the bushes, and juniper roots for their 

 meat/ suffer more from the secondary consequences of such wear, which we have been 

 speaking of as alveolar abscesses, than do the game-, fish-, or shellfish-eating races, 

 such as the tribes represented by the Cro-Magnon and Mentone skeletons, or the 

 Eskimos and Vancouver Island Red Indians. For the action of unintentionally 

 introduced sand, see Wilson, Canadian Journal, Sept. 1862, p. 12, March, 1863, p. 151; 

 Mummery, 1. c. } pp. 35, 36; Pengelly, Trans. Devon Association, 1874, vi. p. 307, com- 

 pared with p. 302, where the cave earth of the Mentone Cave is described as being 

 ' a perfectly dry, very fine, incoherent, greenish sand/ For the wear of the teeth in 

 the Cro-Magnon skeletons, see Broca, Memoires, ii. pp. 166-168 ; for that of the skulls 

 from the Caverne de FHomme Mort, see Kevue d'Anthropologie, 1873, ii. p. 17. The 

 similar sufferings of later races in possession of cerealia may be referred to the detritus 

 of their querns and grain -crushers. 



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