UPON THE SERIES OF PREHISTORIC CRANIA. 305 



jaws, of all ages and both sexes, discovered by Edward Laws, Esq., 

 in a cave near Tenby (see ' Journ. Anthrop. Institute,' July, 1877),' 

 to the early date of which their possession of the 'priscan' pecu- 

 liarities specified above (pp. 243-249) speaks as decisively as their 

 archaeological surroundings, one only, a lower jaw of a man, had 

 been affected by alveolar abscess. From the Westow long-barrow 

 series (' British Barrows,' p. 494) no lower jaw thus affected has 

 been recovered ; from the Eudstone long barrow (Ibid. p. 497) 

 only one (the one described above, p. 211, as) of a man ; from the 

 Ebberston long barrow (' British Barrows,' p. 484) only one, of a 

 woman 1 . 



Further investigations may possibly reverse this relation of 

 numerical superiority on the side of the female sex in the matter of 

 alveolar abscesses. I am inclined however to connect it with the 

 harder life and scantier fare which are the lot of women in most 

 savage races, upon which I have here (p. 258 supra) and elsewhere 2 

 insisted as accounting for the greater inferiority in stature and 

 in bulk which existed and exists between men and women in many 

 ancient and in many modern savage races. 



Feeble general physique is correlated, as Mr. Mummery's exam- 

 ination of modern savage races (pp. 47, 51-54, 60, 63) in Africa, 

 China, Australia, and elsewhere has shown us, with deterioration of 

 the state of the teeth, and this, howsoever, whether by too small a 

 proportion of animal to vegetable food in their dietary, by frequent 

 privation of food altogether, or by general anti-hygienic conditions, 

 this feebleness may have been produced. To realise the working of 

 the two former of these causes among the prehistoric inhabitants 

 of these islands, and especially the women, there is little need of 

 imagination ; I think however that from our present familiarity 

 with the production of anti-hygienic conditions by the crowding of 

 a superabundant population within solid walls, from our lack of 

 familiarity with tent life and savage life, we may underrate the 



1 In none of these cases have I seen any traces of the simple but relief-proilucing 

 operation of extraction, or of other evidence to show that in this, any more than in 

 any other sphere, ' the former days were better than these.' The same lesson may be 

 gathered analogically from observations made upon the remains of modern savages, 

 Mr. Mummery informing us (1. c, p. 47) that he has 'met in Australian jaws with 

 every form of dental disease with which we are familiar amongst the English race.' 



2 'Journal Anth. Inst.,' Oct. 1875, p. 121 note ; ' British Association Report,' 1875, 

 p. 152 ; • Archaeologia,' xlii. 1870, p. 457. 



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