ROUGH STONE MONUMENTS 



is low. The former is called brachycephalic 

 (short-headed), and the latter dolichocephalic 

 (long-headed). 



This index is now accepted by most anthropolo- 

 gists as a useful criterion of race, though, of course, 

 there are other characteristics which must often 

 be taken into account, such as the height and 

 breadth of the face, the cubic capacity of the 

 skull and its general contour. At any rate, if we 

 can show that the skulls of the megalithic tombs 

 conform to a single type in respect of their index 

 we shall have a presumption, though not a cer- 

 tainty, that they belong to a single race. 



For Africa the evidence consists in a group of 

 twenty skulls from dolmen-tombs giving cephalic 

 indices which range from 70*5 to 84*4. The 

 average index is 75*27, and the majority of the 

 indices lay within a few units of that number. 

 Ten skulls from Halsaflieni in Malta have cephalic 

 indices running from 66 to 75*1, the average being 

 71 '84. Of a series of 44 skulls from the rock- 

 tombs of the Petit Morin in France, 12 had an 

 index of over 80, 22 were between 75 and 80, and 

 10 were below 75. But in the dolmens of Lozere 

 distinctly broad skulls were frequent. A series 

 of British neolithic skulls, mostly from barrows, 

 ran from 67 to 77. 



The builders of the megalithic monuments 

 thus belonged in the main to a fairly dolicho- 

 cephalic race or races, for the large majority of 



130 



