CHAP, ix.] NEOLITHIC POPULATION IN BELGIUM, ETC. 313 



from the interment of the Bronze age at Gristhorpe, 



Yorkshire. 1 



% 



Prof. Busk has noticed that some of the leg bones 

 present peculiar characters, the thigh bone bearing 

 an enormously developed linea aspera, and the tibia 

 being flattened laterally, sometimes to the extent of 

 presenting a section similar to that of the blade of a 

 sabre. 2 The latter character is not, as it is sometimes 

 considered, a character linking man with the apes, but 

 is probably related to the free use of the muscles of the 

 feet uncontrolled by rigid sole or sandal. In the large 

 collections of skeletons which I obtained from the sepul- 

 chral caves, and the caves of Perthi Chwareu, Khos- 

 Digre, and the chambered tomb near Cefn, this peculiar 

 character was only met with in some of the older 

 bones, and was absent in most of the men, and all the 

 boys, women, and children. The same irregularity ap- 

 plies equally to the large collection of skeletons of Eed 

 Indians from the burial mounds preserved in the Peabody 

 Museum at Cambridge, Mass., which I was allowed to 

 examine by the kindness of Prof. Putnam in 1875. The 

 flattened tibia has been observed among negroes, and 

 it is not unknown even among civilised Europeans. It 

 cannot therefore be taken to be a character distinctive 

 of race, but one dependent upon the use, more or less, of 

 certain muscles. 



Range on the Continent : Belgium, France, and Spain. 



These small men are proved by numerous discoveries 

 to have had a wide range on the Continent in the 



1 For figures and descriptions see Thurnam, Mem. Anthrop. Soc. Lond. 

 i. pp. 152-153. 2 For details, see Cave-hunting, c. v. vi. 



