460 
NATURE 
[March 3, 1870 
ANCIENT BRITISH LONG BARROWS 
ip 
“ES are many hopeful signs that the number of 
persons to whom all knowledge of nature is dear 
for its own sake is steadily on the increase ; but it is, un- 
fortunately, true that science still requires some adventi- 
tious aid to secure the attention of the general public. 
We must, therefore, look upon it as a matter of congratu- 
lation that even the Irish Question has been found to have 
a scientific aspect, and has recently awakened some 
general interest in so obscure a subject as that of the 
ethnology of England and Ireland. 
It is not our present intention to enter upon the long- 
standing controversy as to the physical characters of the 
so-called Kelts, as we think that the materials for a satis- 
factory solution of the various questions involved are still 
very insufficient, notwithstanding the large amount of really 
trustworthy evidence collected of late years by Broca, 
Pruner Bey, and others in France, and by Barnard Davis, 
Thurnam, Beddoe, and Wilson in our own country. Few 
persons have any idea of the time, skill, and patience 
neccssary for any satisfactory investigation either of the 
ethnic composition of existing populations, or of the 
riflers of grave-mounds and endless discussion of the 
scraps of information handed down by Greek and Roman 
authors ; but of thorough and extended investigation of 
pre-historic monuments of any one class or of any given 
district, with a view to elucidating the ethnography and 
early history of the country rather than with the object of 
collecting specimens for the museum, we haye all too little 
to show. 
The late Mr. Bateman devoted considerable attention 
to the pre-historic archeology of Derbyshire and the 
adjoining counties, but his extensive investigations do 
not appear to have been conducted with the care or 
described with the accuracy necessary for scientific pur- 
poses. The important researches for remains of our early 
ancestors,made by Sir Richard Hoare and Mr. Cunnington 
in the richest district in all England, were undertaken so 
long ago as the beginning of the century ; and although 
the explorations are recorded in full detail in Sir Richard’s 
great work,“Ancient Wiltshire,” the general results have not 
hitherto been fully and satisfactorily worked out. This want 
has, however, at length been supplied in a memoir* recently 
communicated to the Society of Antiquaries by Dr. John 
| Thurnam, a gentleman who possesses the rarely com- 
Fig. 2.—VESSEL WITH PRIMARY INTERMENT. 
characters and affinities of the earlier races whose works 
and remains have come down to us. It may seem sur- 
prising that we should be long in doubt on matters 
apparently so easily settled as the average stature, pre- 
vailing head-form, and distribution of colour of hair and 
eyes, in various districts of our own and neighbouring 
countries ; but it must be remembered that the number 
of persons interested in this branch of inquiry is ex- 
tremely small, and that the collection of anthropological 
statistics by inaccurate or improperly instructed observers 
is very much to be deprecated. If the scientific study of 
existing populations is surrounded with difficulties and 
can reckon but few votaries, still more is this the case 
with the investigation of the character and affinities of the 
races inhabiting Western Europe at the dawn of history 
and in pre-historic times. We have had innumerable 
Norton Bavant, Long Barrow (scale 2 linear) 
bined qualifications of classical scholarship, antiquarian 
knowledge, and familiarity with scientific method, and 
who is well known as one of the authors of the “ Crania 
Britannica,” undoubtedly the most valuable contribution 
to the ethnology of this country which has yet been pub- 
lished. The memoir in question is not a mere analysis 
of the labours of the Wiltshire baronet and his coadjutor; 
it is toa large extent a record of original explorations, 
more especially of a class of monuments somewhat 
neglected by Sir Richard Hoare, but to which the greatest 
interest attaches now that the advances in certain de- 
partments of anatomical knowledge enable us to turn to 
due account the evidence afforded by human remains. 
* Onancient British Barrows, especially those of Wiltshire and the ad- 
joining counties. PartI. Long Barrows. From the “ Archeologia,” vol. xlil. 
1869 
