DlXIiMBER 24, 1908] 



NA TURE 



■61 



At leasi, [ know of no trustworthy evidence of the physical 

 characters of a race being rapidly changed by its environ- 

 ment, i-xccpt in modern industrial towns like Glasgow, 

 and >urh rapid changes in the environment as have been 

 produced by modern industrial development did not occur 

 in the prehistoric times with which this investigation 

 dc-als. 



Assuming, therefore, this principle of the permanency 

 of the average dimensions of a race, I proceed to inquire 

 whether there is any special physical type of man 

 associated with the British stone circles, and to determine, 

 so far as is possible with the material available for com- 

 parison, the affinities and origin of this race. 



In applying this method of anthropometrical analysis, it 

 should be remembered that a significant difference between 

 two groups of men in a single dimension proves that 

 they cannot possibly belong to the same race. It does 

 not, however, follow with the same degree of certainty 

 that, if there is no significant difference between one or 

 two dimensions, that the races are necessarily the same, 

 but identity' is the most reasonable assumption. 



In one of the districts in which stone circles are most 

 numerous, namely, in east Aberdeenshire, a very unique 

 type of man has been found in short cists, associated 

 with a special kind of pottery, namely, the " drinking 

 vessel " which Mr. .'\bercromby has shown to belong to 

 the transition period between the Neolithic and the Bronze 

 age. 



The average cephalic index of ten adult male skulls of 

 this short-cist race, measured by Dr. Low, is 852, the 

 average stature is 5 feet 3 inches, the average length of 

 head is iSi-i mm., and the average breadth of head is 



»54-4- 



Now the remarkable characteristic of this short-cist 

 race is that its physical dimensions differ significantly 

 from all the other groups of prehistoric races of Britain 

 that have as yet been measured. 



It differs enormously from the Neolithic race which 

 preceded it. Of these we have two groups, one measured 

 by Thurnam and Davis, having an average cephalic index 

 of 71-0, and the other by Schuster, having an average 

 cephalic index of 74-7. 



Those who believe that the environment was capable of 

 changing a race with an average index of 74 into a race 

 with an average index of 8, must show that the Neolithic 

 race was transported into an environment which is 

 known, or at least surmised, to be capable of producing 

 broad heads from long heads. It has been surmised that 

 a mountainous environment has this effect, because we 

 generally find broad heads inhabiting the great moun- 

 tainous regions of .Asia and Europe; but we find our 

 short-cist broad heads in Britain, not generally in the 

 mountainous regions, but in the lowlands lying adjacent 

 to the sea coast. 



There is no escaping the conclusion, therefore, that the 

 short-cist brachycephals could not possibly have been 

 evolved from the dolichocephalic Neolithic inhabitants of 

 Britain. 



There are, however, some prehistoric races in Britain 

 that come much closer to the short-cist men than the 

 Neolithic race. 



The Bronze-age men of the round barrows have an 

 average index of 79-3 .according to Thurnam and Davis's 

 measurements ; another group from the east Yorkshire 

 barrows, measured by Dr. Wright, give an average index 

 of 77'3 '• ^"'^ 3 third group, measured by Schuster, give 

 an average index of 76-8. 



Taking Thurnam and Davis's group as being nearest 

 to the short-cist group, I find, on making the necessary 

 statistical calculations, that the odds against short-cist 

 men being a random sample of the round-barrow men 

 are more than 25,000 to i. 



.All the other prehistoric British groups, such as the 

 Anglo-Saxon or Iron-age groups measured by Myers and 

 Smith, are much further removed than the round-barrow 

 men. so that there can be no question about these belong- 

 ing to an entirely different race. 



The modern Scotch skulls, taken principally from grave- 

 yards in the eastern counties of Scotland, and measured 

 by Sir William Turner, evidently belong to much the 

 same type as the round-barrow men, and are undoubtedly 



.VO. 2043, VOL. 79] 



of different race from the short-cist men. The media;val 

 Kentish skulls at Hythe, measured by Dr. Parsons, though 

 apparently belonging to a type not hitherto investigated, 

 and having an average inde.K of 79-3, nevertheless differ 

 widely in their absolute dimensions, more especially in 

 their breadth, from the short-cist skulls. 



There is only one small group of five skulls found in 

 Glamorganshire, and measured by Prof. Hepburn, which 

 does not differ significantly in some one dimension from 

 the Aberdeenshire short-cist skulls ; and this group 

 evidently belongs to the same race, and was found in a 

 stone-circle district, two stone circles in this district being 

 described in " Archieol. Cambr.," vol. v., 6lh series. 



Here, then, we have a race differing from all known 

 racial groups, prehistoric or modern, in Britain. In 

 .Aberdeenshire and South Wales it is foimd closely 

 associated with stone circles. No other prehistoric race, 

 at least in the Aberdeenshire area, has been found 

 associated with these circles. 



The conclusion seems inevitable that the British stone 

 circles w-ere invented and built by a hyperbrachycephalic 

 race of short stature which came from abroad, and appar- 

 ently settled first, in the early Bronze age, in the district 

 now known as Cornwall and Devon. From thence they 

 migrated through Wales to Scotland by the route already 

 described. 



The Affinities and Origin of the Short-cist Race. 



Since we can find no affinities to the short-cist race 

 in Britain, we must examine the physical characters of 

 the prehistoric races of the countries from whence migra- 

 tions into Britain might be supposed to have come. 



In Sweden, all the prehistoric races of the Stone, 

 Bronze, and Iron ages have been measured by Rctzius, and 

 have average indexes, respectively, of 75, 74-1, and 70. 

 There can be absolutely no affinity between them and the 

 short-cist men. In Denmark, on the west coast, we have 

 the Borreby type, which closely resembles our round- 

 barrow men, but differs significantly from the short-cist 

 men. 



The most hopeful comparison appeared to be with the 

 short, brachycephalic race in Sw?itzerland, known as the 

 " Disentis " type. This, according to His and Ruti- 

 meyer's measurements, has an average index of 86-5, but 

 when the absolute dimensions are taken into consideration 

 and the necessary statistical calculations have been made, 

 1 find that the odds against the short-cist men belonging 

 to this type are more than 6000 to i. 



There 'appears to be no other likely race in Europe that 

 could have sent, in the Bronze age, emigrants of the short- 

 cist type to Britain. 



We' must look, therefore, to Asia, the habitat par excel- 

 lence of brachycephalic man ; and Asia Minor is un- 

 doubtedly the most likely starting point, at least for a sea- 

 faring race. 



We have, unfortunately, no measurements of the pre- 

 historic races of Asia Minor, but all authorities appear to 

 be agreed that certain races who were the pioneers of 

 civilisation in the East were brachycephalic, and appar- 

 ently also of short stature. These brachycephalic races 

 were known by various names, namely, .Akkadians, 

 Sumerians, Kassites, Khetan, and Hittites. 



We have not the data absolutely to prove that this 

 Turanian race of Mesopotamia and -Asia Minor was 

 identical with our short-cist race, but if we fail to find 

 the mother race in Asia Minor we shall have to go much 

 further afield. 



There is one small item of positive evidence. ihe 

 modern Chinese are said to be descended from the 

 .Akkadians, and of anv tvpe that has been mvestigated 

 the modern Chinese skull most resembles m size and 

 shape the short-cist skull. , ,, , j- 



If we should ever find a sufficient number of Akkadian 

 or Ilittite skulls to establish their physical type, the ques- 

 tion would be settled. In the meantime, the physical 

 evidence, so far as it goes, appears to me to be strongly 

 in favour of the view that our short-cist men were a 

 colony of Akkadians, Sumerians, or Hittites, who migrated 

 to England by sea about 2000 B.C., probably in order to 

 work the Cornish tin mines and the Welsh copper mines. 



The Akkadians, according to Conder. in his recent book 



