306 GENEKAL REMARKS 



extent to which unhealthy conditions may, or indeed must have 

 prevailed in the dwellings even of sparse populations in days so 

 long before the invention not merely of glass but of many other 

 things in which in these days ' our basest beggars are superfluous.' 

 It is obvious however upon the smallest consideration, even in the 

 absence of any personal acquaintance with present savage life, that 

 the dwellings of the races we are dealing with must have been dark 

 and crowded to secure warmth, and that the female portion of the 

 tribe would have a larger share of these as of other depressing 

 influences to contend with than the males. And the effects of these 

 influences would show themselves as surely and clearly in the teeth, 

 a system most closely correlated with the general state of the whole 

 organism, as in their feebler trunk and limb bones 1 . The great 

 frequency of the perforation in the olecranic fossa of female pre- 

 historic humeri, noticed by Broca ('Memoires,' ii. p. 366, and ' Rev. 

 d' Anthropologic,' 1873, ii. p. 15) and instanced by me (' Journ. 

 Anth. Inst/ v. pp. 149-159, 1 61-169, Article XVIII) in four cases 

 from the Swell long barrows, is to be similarly explained ; and, 

 conversely, its absence in the Cro-Magnon and Mentone skeletons, 

 which belonged to the ' giants ' of tradition. 



I have not, though constantly careful in looking for irregularities 

 in dentition, found many in either of the prehistoric series which 

 I have examined. Three of retardation of one or both bicuspids 

 with retention of the second milk molar in persons of fourteen to 

 fifteen years of age (' Jarrett, cxix,' p. 328, ' Money Hill, cxxi. 3,' 

 p. 330, and ' Flixton, lxxi. 1,' ' British Barrows/ p. 275) may be men- 



1 The slovenly habits of savages, carnivorous as well as vegetarian, by allowing of 

 the admixture of sand with their food, furnish a very efficient means for wearing down 

 of the teeth. But the inland tribes, who, like the outcasts described in the book of 

 Job (chap. xxx. ver. 3-8), ' cut up mallows by the bushes, and juniper roots for their 

 meat,' suffer more from the secondary consequences of such wear, which we have been 

 speaking of as alveolar abscesses, than do the game-, fish-, or shellfish-eating races, 

 such as the tribes represented by the Cro-Magnon and Mentone skeletons, or the 

 Eskimos and Vancouver Island Red Indians. For the action of unintentionally 

 introduced sand, see Wilson, 'Canadian Journal,' Sept. 1862, p. 12, March, 1863. p. 151 ; 

 Mummery, 1. c, pp. 35, 36 ; Pengelly, 'Trans. Devon Association,' 1874, y i- P- 3°7> com- 

 pared with p. 302, where the cave earth of the Mentone Cave is described as being 

 ' a perfectly dry, very fine, incoherent, greenish sand.' For the wear of the teeth in 

 the Cro-Magnon skeletons, see Broca, 'Me'moires,' ii. pp. 166-168 ; for that of the skulls 

 from the Caverne de l'Homme Mort, see ' Revue d' Anthropologic/ 1873, ii. p. 17. The 

 similar sufferings of later races in possession of cerealia may be referred to the detritus 

 of their querns and grain-crushers. 





