170 DESCRIPTION OF FIGURES OF SKULLS. 



of the bones of the trunk and limbs, to pronounce as to the sex 

 of a skull, and it is much more unsafe, as the disputes relative to the 

 Engis skull show, to pronounce positively in cases where the lower 

 jaw and even the base of the skull with the mastoids and the 

 facial bones are wanting also. When such cases have occurred 

 amongst the skulls submitted to me, I have spoken of the sex 

 as 'uncertain;' this uncertainty however does not seem to me to 

 attach to any of the figured skulls or calvariae. 



The skulls which have been selected for figuring will put into 

 contrast not only the peculiarities of male and female crania, but 

 also those due to differences in years ; special regard having been 

 had in their arrangement to the importance of distinguishing 

 between ethnical characters and those dependent upon age by 

 ranking the skulls of each type in the order of their seniority. 



vol. i. p. 127, 1866), the cases where ambiguity arises are cases in which female skulls 

 have assumed, or must be supposed to have assumed, male characters ; it is only very 

 rarely that we are in any danger of supposing a skull to be female which is really 

 male. On the other hand, the words of His ('Crania Helvetica,' p. 9. 1864), 'Die 

 Geschlectsbestimmung nach dem blossen Ansehen fiihrt allzuleicht zu Willkiihrlich- 

 keiten als dass man sich darauf verlassen konnte,' seem to me to rate the value of an 

 unassisted cranioscopy in the question of sex a little lower than it really deserves. 

 And the argument by which he supports this view, drawn from the fact that skulls 

 which had been classed by competent observers as undoubtedly female could never- 

 theless be proved to have come from an interment on a battlefield, is by no means 

 convincing. The German woman was told (see Tacitus, 'Germania,' p. 18), on the 

 occasion of her marriage, by tangible symbols as well as by mere words, ' venire se 

 laborum periculorumque sociam, idem in pace, idem in praelio passuram ausurarnque.'' 

 The same community of risks, we are told by numerous ancient writers, e. g. 

 Diodorus 1 , Strabo 2 , Plutarch 3 , and others, was run by both sexes amongst Celtic 

 tribes ; and I find it recorded of a Celtic invasion *, which took place little more than 

 200 years ago and ended much as the one just referred to as recorded by Plutarch, 

 that ' amongst the Welsh were found many women which had knives near half a yard 

 long to effect some notable massacres with them.' Mr. W. P. Price has enabled 

 me to prove the truth of this statement by an examination of the skeletons of these 

 invaders. 



1 Diodorus, v. 32. At S« ywaT/ces tojv TaXaruv ov povov tois f-ieytOecri irapan\r]Cioi 

 rots avdpaaiv elalv dWa kox reus d\Kais ha.fj.1W01. 



2 Strabo, vii. 2. 3. "E6os 5e tl twv Kifx,fipoJv oirjyovvrai roiovrov oti racs yvvaifciv 

 avrojv ovarpanvovaais iraprj/co\ovdovv Trpo/xapreis. 



3 Plutarch, Marius, 27. The details of the slaughters of Aquae Sextiae and Vercellae 

 are too well known to need quoting : ' nee minus cum uxoribus eorum pugna quam 

 cum ipsis fuit,' says Florus, iii. 3. See also Ammianus Marcellinus, xv. c. 12. 



4 'The Kingdome's Weekly Intelligencer,' Friday, March 31, 1643; a Parlia- 

 mentarian newspaper, quoted in a ' Letter on the Discovery of the Skeletons at 

 Barber's Bridge,' by W. H. Price, Esq., M.P. Gloucester, 1868. 



