260 GENERAL REMARKS 



of which single examples occur amongst the semi-civilised canoemen 

 on the river.' The fact, finally, of the existence in certain un- 

 civilised races of a far greater difference between the skulls of the 

 women and those of the men than that which exists in European 

 races, is put forward with emphasis by Dr. Zuckerkandl, in the 

 'Reise der Novara,' Anthrop. Theil, i. 1875, p. iii ; and, besides 

 proving, when compared with the utterances of Retzius, Huschke, 

 and Broca, to precisely the opposite effect, the variability of savage 

 female crania, brings, when compared with the results of an exami- 

 nation of female long-barrow crania, a fresh illustration of the 

 importance of collecting, while yet we may, all the available facts 

 for the illustration of ancient savage life. 



In saying that the dolichocephalic skeletons of the long-barrow 

 period contrast in the points of strength and stature to disadvantage 

 with those of the bronze age, it is by no means intended to assert 

 that ill-filled skulls and stunted skeletons are never to be found in 

 the brachycephalic series. The very reverse of this indeed has 

 been already, p. 189, pointed out as being the state of the case. 

 The races of the bronze age were in possession of larger means for 

 carrying on the battle of life than those of the stone age ; still, 

 they lived in latitudes which we are sometimes tempted to think 

 are only made endurable by the command of glass, and coal, and 

 iron ; and they must, like races in more modern times in a somewhat 

 similar stage of development, have from time to time suffered 

 greatly from famines. Suffering from scarcity of food at a critical 

 period of growth is sufficient to stunt the stature of individuals 

 even of tall races who may be subjected to it. The chiefs would 

 be less liable than the common people to be so affected ; Mr. Bates 

 indeed tells us of a Brazilian tribe ( f Naturalist on the Amazons,' ii. 

 p. 127) how the ' footmarks of the chief could be distinguished from 

 the rest by their great size and the length of the stride;' still, 

 a long-continued succession of murrains and bad harvests would 

 affect all classes alike, even in the bronze as well as the stone age. 

 The stature would be more likely to be affected by the operation of 

 such times of scarcity than would the size of the head, as it goes 

 on increasing for so many years, possibly years of scarcity, after the 

 full proportions of the cranium are attained to 1 . But small and 



1 The average circumference of the head has been shown by Liharzig (' Das Gesetz 

 des Wachsthuins,' Tab. v. and vi.) to be but a little over an inch less in either sex at 



