840 REPORT— 1888. 



both those varieties to exist in Wiltshire, eight being of the oval form and four of 

 the coffin-shaped variety. General Pitt-Rivers' specimens showed the same varieties 

 to exist, but the oval form to be greatly predominant in numbers. The author 

 found two specimens to be hyperdolichocephalic (Cephalic Index, 65-69), seven 

 dolichocephalic (Index, 70-74), three mesaticephalic (Index, 75-79), and no brachy- 

 cephalic specimens. Of the specimens excavated by General Pitt-Rivers, three are 

 hyperdolichocephalic, eleven dolichocephalic, ten mesaticephalic, and two brachy- 

 cephalic. The charactei's presented by the neolithic skulls showed evidence of 

 the people at that time not being of absolutely pure race. Examination of General 

 Pitt-Rivers' specimens showed that the characters of the skull were identical with 

 those of the early race, though there was evidence that in the interval of time 

 which separated the two sets of interments the people had become, as was to be 

 expected, somewhat more mixed. This fact would account for the greater number 

 of mesaticephalic persons among the skeletons excavated by General Pitt-Rivers, 

 both the Celts and the Romans with whom they came in contact having much 

 rounder heads than themselves, while the brachycephalic skulls found by General 

 Pitt-Rivers proved themselves to be those of Celts or Romans who had been in- 

 terred with the Britons. Passing to an examination of the long bones of the 

 skeleton, the author found the average stature of the neolithic persons he had 

 examined, estimated from the length of the femur and humerus is, 1,588 mm. 

 (5 ft. 2-5 inches) ; others, estimated from the radius (consequently not to be so 

 much depended on), averaged 5 ft. 5 inches, the average of the whole being 1,628 mm. 

 ( = 5 feet 4 inches), which is the identical average of the skeletons from Woodcuts 

 village. If the statures estimated from the radius be excluded — which, owing to 

 their being much greater than those estimated from other bones, may fairly be 

 done — the average stature of the neolithic Briton and of all the Romano-British 

 people found by General Pitt-Rivers at both villages is exactly the same. 



From the characters of the skull and the statures being as nearly as possible 

 identical with those of the early dolichocephalic and neolithic inhabitants of Britain, 

 the author concludes that the human remains obtained from General Pitt-Rivers' 

 excavations are no other than those of the neolithic people who had existed down 

 to Roman times in a comparative state of purity. The evidence of this being the 

 case seemed to him to be corroborated by the fact that down to the present day it 

 is easy to trace remnants of the old Iberian race in various parts of England and 

 Wales, notwithstanding the great interchange of population which has taken place 

 during the present century. 



3. On a Metliod of investigating the Development of Institutions ; applied to 

 Laws of Marriage and Descent. By Edward B. Ttlor, F.B.S. 



With the view of applying direct numerical method to anthropology, the writer 

 has compiled schedules of the systems of marriage and descent among some 350 

 peoples of the world, so as to ascertain by means of a ' method of adhesions ' how 

 far each rule co-exists or not with other rules, and what have been the directions 

 of development from one rule to another. As a first test of the results to be ob- 

 tained by this means, the barbaric custom is examined which forbids the husband 

 and his wife's parents (though on a friendly footing) to speak or look at one another, 

 or mention one another's names. Some seventy peoples practise this or the converse 

 custom of the wife and her husband's relatives being obliged ceremonially to ' cut ' 

 one another. On classifying the marriage rules of mankind, a marked distinction 

 is found to lie between those peoples wliose custom is for the husband to reside with 

 his wife's family and those where he removes her to his own home. It appears that 

 the avoidance custom between the husband and the wife's family belongs prepon- 

 derantljf (in fourteen cases, as compared with eight computed as likely to happen by 

 chance) to the group of cases where the husband goes to live with the wife's family. 

 This implies a causal connection between the customs of avoidance and residence, 

 suggesting as a reason that the husband, being an interloper in the wife's family, 

 must be treated as a stranger ; to use an English idiom expressing the situation, 

 he is not ' recognised.' Other varieties of the custom show similar preponderant 



