UPON THE SEEIE8 OF PREHISTORIC CRANIA.. 249 



attention in the 'Natural History Review' of 1865 (see also Virchow, 

 • Archiv fur Anthrop.' v. p. 535, 1872) as being very frequent in this 

 type of cranium is specially obvious ; and not rarely, though by 

 no means universally, in the skulls of individuals in quite early 

 stages of adult life (see pp. an, 213 supra). It is rare in the 

 brachycephalic series to see any traces of such anchylosis until 

 many other senile changes have set in with advancing years. 



In many of the stone-age dolichocephali, by combining the 

 view given in the norma verticalis with that given in the norma 

 occipitalis, we realise to ourselves very vividly the force of the 

 epithets ' scaphocephalic ' and • kumbocephalic ' (see p. 214 supra) 

 which have been applied to them. The keeled mesial ridge and the 

 lateral wall-sidedness given in the back view are often combined 

 with a rapid tapering, both forwards and backwards, from the plane 

 of the anteriorly situated parietal tubera, which suggests the 

 comparison to a long and narrow boat which the epithets just 

 quoted embody. On the other hand,, it must be said that the 

 contour presented by these skulls in the norma verticalis does, whilst 

 always retaining the length in a relation of advantage to the 

 breadth, yet vary considerably, as the other epithets ' birnfdrmig,' 

 pear-shaped, ' keulenformig,' club-shaped ( = * elongate oval '), and 

 coffin-shaped ( = ' cuneate oval ') by various writers applied to them 

 plainly indicate. In other words, these skulls when viewed in this 

 as also in other aspects are seen, whilst remaining always dolicho- 

 cephalous, to vary considerably as to being well or ill filled, globular 

 or pinched, phaenozygous or aphaenozygous, rounded off or angular 

 in the plane of greatest breadth, and finally to some extent even 

 as to the relative position of this plane in the long axis of the 

 skull. 



As has been however already said, the conformation of the lower 

 jaw in every well-marked variety of the human species is an 

 eminently distinctive element in the complex aggregate of peculia- 

 rities which make up its cranial character. The presence of pro- 

 gnathism in the upper jaw is by no means a point of such con- 

 sequence for distinguishing crania of prehistoric series inter se, as it 

 is for distinguishing them from those of later and of modern races. 

 For, as a matter of fact, prognathism, which is not always constant 

 in its presence even in modern races reputedly prognathic, is by 

 no means common in crania from the early interments of Britain 



