360 ON THE PEOPLE OF THE LONG-BARROW PERIOD. 



anthropologists of that type, whilst many of the male skulls, in 

 which the smoothly-swelling globose outlines and rounded -off 

 contours of the female skulls are replaced by muscular ridges, 

 vertical carinae, and foreheads sloping in correlation with heavy 

 lower jaws, might be taken as fair, if not precisely accurate, repre- 

 sentatives of the Hohberg type which is so closely allied to it. 



A few pathological and teratological peculiarities will be noticed 

 in the detailed account to be given below. It is interesting to note, 

 that in no case have the wisdom teeth been observed to have come 

 through previously to the ossification of the spheno-occipital syn- 

 chondrosis. This is the reverse of what has been observed in certain 

 savage races, ancient and modern, by M. Broca 1 . Perhaps the 

 pastoral habits of these tribes may account for their conformity in 

 this particular to what is usual in civilised races, a diet of milk, 

 cheese, and flesh causing less injury to the teeth, and being less 

 likely to call the wisdom teeth prematurely into use than one in 

 which vegetable food forms a large factor. The bones of animals 

 found in these barrows were, it may be noted, and again contrary 

 to expectation, those of domestic breeds almost, or quite in- 

 variably 2 . 



As regards the age of the long barrows, there is no doubt that, 

 whatever other traces of the presence of man may be found in these 

 islands, they are the earliest sepulchral evidence of his existence 

 here. The huge cubical bulk of some of these tumuli is an a priori 

 argument for their antiquity. Pristine or priscan man, like the 

 modern savage, grudged no labour less than that which was spent 

 on piling up a huge burial mound. My friend Mr. H. N. Moseley, 

 naturalist on H.M.S. ' Challenger,' in recording his observations on 

 the Kudang tribe of Australians living near Cape York, tells me 

 that though they are destitute of almost everything in the way of 

 property, having neither perforated stones to help them to dig 

 roots — as have the Bushmen — nor boomerangs, nor tomahawks, 

 nor any shaped stone implements, nor canoes ; living, not on the 

 available wallabies and phalangers, but on fish, reptiles, inverte- 

 brata, and vegetables ; having the scantiest clothing, and sometimes, 

 even in the cases of adults, none at all ; being, finally, below savagery, 



1 * Revue d'Anthrop.,' ii. i, p. si, 1873. 



2 Per contra, in a pit within the British fort at Cissbury, Bos primigenius and 

 wild-boar bones were found. 



