592 kepokt — 1878. 



that the marks on the butts of two lance-points, of which graphic representations 

 are given in the 'Reliquiae Aquitanicse,' are considered by the accomplished editor 

 (Professor Rupert Jones) to be inscriptive. 



It is not supposed that any of the early races, either in France or England, 

 invented written characters. All that it is necessary to assume is that a know- 

 ledge of letters may have been acquired by commerce or " contact " from a people 

 in a higher state of civilisation, just as bronze was introduced into neo-lithic 

 France from the East at what appears to have been a less remote period. 



In support of this I may mention that Professor Rhys, from a critical study of 

 the Ogham characters, arrived some time back at the conclusion that they must 

 have been founded on an earlier alphabet, which he considers woidd ultimately 

 have been derived from the East.* Owing, however, to the perishable nature of 

 the material (viz. wood) on which the earlier Runes are traditionally supposed to 

 have been inscribed, no remains were believed to be in existence. 



It is important, so far as the more distinctive forms at Cissbury are concerned, 

 that the significant fact shoidd be known that coins have been found on the coast 

 of Sussex, which Mr. Ernest Willett informs us are of the type of those of Sex, a 

 Carthaginian colony in the South of Spain : t and some of the Runes of that district 

 are like the symbols at Cissbury last alluded to. 



5. The Primitive Human Family. By C. Staniland Wake, M.A.I. 



After an examination of the theories of Mi - . MacLennan, Sir John Lubbock, 

 Mr. Morgan, and Mr. Herbert Spencer, all of which assumed that, owing to the un- 

 certainty of paternity, the primitive human family was based on kinship through 

 the female only, it was shown that such an assumption is not consistent with the 

 social phenomena exhibited among uncultured peoples, which require the full recog- 

 nition of relationship through the male as well as through the female, and that, 

 while the clan or gentile organization is based on the latter, the primitive authority 

 of the father as the head of the family is perpetuated in the tribal organization. 



* See ' Lectures on Welsh T hilology.' Triibner, p. 366. 

 f ' Numismatic Chron.,' 1878, vol. xvii. New Series.' 



