UPON THE SERIES OF PREHISTORIC CRANIA, 709 



these may be mentioned prog-nathism ; a peculiarity which our 

 knowledge of the extent to which the jaws are modifiahle and 

 modified by the nature of the dietary alike in the lower races of 

 man and in the lower animals, would certainly lead us to expect to 

 find amongst a stone- and bone-using people. But, as it has often 

 been remarked \ the facial angle of these early races is by no means 

 small, and their jaws have none of that pithecoid elongation which 

 is so striking and prominent a characteristic in the crania of many 

 still existing savages. On the other hand, prognathic and maero- 

 gnathic jaws are not rare, though they are not the rule, in series 

 from the bronze, and also from the early iron period in this 

 country. 



A second mark of inferiority, not entirely unexampled among 

 modern savages, the junction, namely, of the squamous to the frontal 

 bone, has never to my knowledge been observed in any prehistoric 

 crania. If this peculiarity had been present its significance would 

 have been very great, as denoting a curtailment of the part of the 

 brain which, corresponding to the great ala of the spheroid in the 

 skull, is eminently favorably conditioned, both as regards vascular 

 supply and histological constitution. 



I have already remarked (pp. 640, 650 siqna, and Journ. Anthrop. 

 Inst., vol. V. p. 126) that a third mark of inferiority, that, namely, 

 which is constituted by diminution of the height of the skull, abso- 

 lutely as well as relatively to its long and transverse diameters, is 

 not usually noticeable, except in the female skulls of the dolicho- 

 cephalic long-barrow race. To this may be added that in the series 

 from the Caverne de I'Homme Mort, belonging to an early period 

 of the neolithic age. Professor Broca found the height of the female 

 actually exceeding that of the male skulls in the proportion of 132 

 millimetres to 131. 



If we miss in these neolithic crania the diminution of the height 

 of the skull which Professor Busk has, under the name of ' tapeino- 

 cephaly,' noted in certain modern savages, we look almost equally 

 in vain amongst them for a fourth point of degradation, the elonga- 

 tion, to wit, of the basicranial axis ; a peculiarity which Professor 

 Cleland has rightly insisted upon (Phil. Trans., 1870, p. 124) as 

 being strikingly and remarkably characteristic of uncivilised nations 

 as distinct ethnographically as the Esquimaux, the Kafirs, and the 

 Caribs. 



• Broca, M^moires, ii. p. 197; Rev. Anth., L c, p. 19; Thuniam, Principal Forms 

 p. 32. 



