714 GENERAL REMAEKS 



polog-ie, 1873, vi. p. 92) speaking of the notion that savagery and 

 inferiority are characteristics of the aboriginal population of Europe 

 as being simply an arbitrary preconception, der vorgefassten Meinung 

 von der Wlldheit und Infer'ioritdt der europaischen Urhevolkerung . 



But against this criticism we have to set the following considera- 

 tions; firstly, that the male skeletons in these tumuli are the skeletons 

 of men who were chiefs^ and chiefs in times and under conditions 

 when such a position was held and kept only by men of force at 

 once of character and physique (see supra pp. 640, 662, ibique citato) ; 

 secondly, that even in these ' tombs of the kings ' we find (see suj^ira 

 pp. 658, 660, 704) female skulls and female skeletons of dispropor- 

 tionate smallness ; and, thirdly, that (see pp. 615, 651, 675 supra), 

 mixed up in these tumuli with the large and well-filled male skulls 

 there are not wanting ' ill-filled,' ' boat-shaped ' crania, to parallel 

 which we have to go far afield amongst modern ' Natur-volker ;' or 

 that, in technical language, the crania of the neolithic period were 

 not rarely dolicho-cephalic in a way which justifies us in speaking 

 of them as being steno-cephalic'^ and of their owners as being in 

 contrast to modern civilised dolicho-cephali, angustiores rather than 

 latiores. To the narrowness of the ill-fed brain the simplicity or ob- 

 literation of the sutures testifies often, even in the most fragmentary 

 of the neolithic crania ; in more perfect specimens we have the same 

 conditions more forcibly impressed upon our imagination by the 



^ Professor Aeby in 1803 (Verhandl. Naturforsch. Gesell. Basel., iii. 4) proposed to 

 divide all skulls into the two classes of Steno-cephalous and Dolicho-cephaloiis, having 

 regard simply to the differences of breadth. In 1867, in his Schiidelformen des Men- 

 schen und der Affen, p. 32, he again argues that this division should be substituted 

 for that of Retzius, according to which skulls are similarly divided into two classes, 

 but into Dolicho-cephalous and Brachy-cephalous by reference to the relation sub- 

 sisting between their length and breadth. His words are as follows : — ' Was er 

 (Retzius) also f iir lang und kurz gehalten ist nichts anders als schmal und breit, und 

 es scheiden sich die menschen nicht nach Dolicho-cephalie und Brachy-cephalie 

 sondern nach Steno-cephalie und Eurj--cephalie.' As there appears to be some 

 tendency in recent writers, e.g. Zuckerkandl, Novara Reise, 1875, p. 65, to adopt this, 

 classification, it may be well to say here that with dolicho-cephaly and brachy-cejihaly 

 respectively many more properties are correlated than those which their mere etymo- 

 logy comiotes. Some of these are of primary morphological (see p. 637 supra), others 

 of primary physiological (see p. 677 supra) importance. Neither is it possible to 

 oveiTate the ethnographical importance of the fact insisted upon (pp. 589, 648, 662, 

 664, 665 supra) that within the circumscription of dolicho-cephaly and brachy-cephaly 

 both, a natural subdivision may be made by reference to this very matter of breadth. 

 There are 'ill-filled' brachy-cephalie skulls as well as ' well-filled;' 'well-filled' dolicho- 

 cephalic skulls as well as ' ill-filled ; ' and to use, as is now sometimes done, the word 

 * steno-cephalous ' or ' schmalkopfige,' as convertible with dolicho-cephalous and as 

 opposed to brachy-cephalous, is simply to ignore facts. These are excellently ex- 

 pressed by Professor Cleland's proposed quadinfid division of dolicho-cephali and brachy- 

 cephali into latiores and angustiores respectively. See Phil. Trans. 1870, p. 148. 



