TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION H. 525 
ancient inhabitants of Western Asia on the one hand and certain Polynesians 
on the other—suggesting far-reaching prehistoric migrations, the distribution 
of certain peculiarly distinctive practices, such as mummification and the build- 
ing of megalithic monuments, is made use of to confirm the reality of such 
wanderings of peoples, the author said :— 
‘TI have already (at the Portsmouth, Dundee, and Birmingham meetings) dealt 
with the problem as it affects the Mediterranean littoral and Western Europe. 
On the present occasion I propose to direct attention mainly to the question of 
the spread of culture from the centres of the ancient civilisations along the 
Southern Asiatic coast and from there out into the Pacific. From the examina- 
tion of the evidence supplied by megalithic monuments and distinctive burial 
customs, studied in the light of the historical information relating to the influence 
exerted by Arabia and India in the Far East, one can argue by analogy as to 
the nature of migrations in the even more remote past to explain the distribution 
of the earliest peoples dwelling on the shores of the Pacific. 
‘Practices such as mummification and megalith-building present so many 
peculiar and distinctive features that no hypothesis of independent evolution can 
seriously be entertained in explanation of their geographical distribution. 
They must be regarded as evidence of the diffusion of information, and the 
migrations of bearers of it, from somewhere in the neighbourhood of the Eastern 
Mediterranean step by step out into Polynesia and even perhaps beyond the 
Pacific to the American littoral.’ 
2. The Short Cists of the North-East of Scotland. 
By AuExanveR Low, M.A., M.D. 
The Short Cists of the North-East of Scotland are single interments found 
mostly without any overground structure to indicate their site. The cists are 
built of irregularly shaped flat stones set on edge, and roofed over by one large 
flat covering stone. The internal dimensions vary, but an average cist measures 
three feet long by two feet wide and one foot six inches deep. There is no 
evidence of the cists being oriented in any particular direction. In the cists 
examined burial was by inhumation. There is evidence to show that, while 
burial by inhumation was the earlier practice, inhumation and incineration were 
pantly contemporaneous ; and this is borne out by one cist, in which along with a 
burial by inhumation were found calcined human bones. 
Besides the skeletal remains there were associated with the interments clay 
urns, flint scrapers, flint arrowheads, but no trace of metal. The urns were 
all of the ‘ beaker’ type, except in one instance, where the urn was of the ‘ food- 
vessel ’ type. 
We have made a detailed examination of a series of fifteen somewhat complete, 
short cist skeletons preserved in the Anatomy Department of the University of 
Aberdeen. The skull form is very uniform in its characters. A skull, from a 
short cist recovered at Parkhill, Aberdeenshire, may be taken as representative 
of the type. The skull is that of a male, sutures partly closed, frontal and 
parietal eminences well developed, cubic capacity 1,450 (of mustard seed), hori- 
zontal circumference 524, glabello-occipital length 135, minimum frontal diameter 
102, interzygomatic breadth 142, nasio-alveolar length 64, nasal height 48, nasal 
width 23, orbital width 41, orbital height 33. With a length-breadth index of 
85, the measurements are those of a brachycephalic skull with low broad face, 
microseme and almost mesorhine. The norma lateralis shows an orthognathous 
face with well-formed chin, depressed nasion, well-marked superciliary ridges, 
frontal arc ascending with a uniform steep curve to bregma, behind this there is 
flattening, and then the postero-parietal passes down sharply to the lambda and 
is associated with occipital flattening. : 
Altogether the series of skeletal remains gives evidence of a people of some- 
what under medium stature, well-built and athletic, with very broad skulls, low 
straight faces, narrow orbits and somewhat broadish noses. 
As to the affinities of these short cist builders, the characters of their 
skeletons are very similar to those of the broad-headed Alpine race that occupied 
Central Europe about the end of the Stone Age and which are supposed to be 
