CERTAIN ANCIENT BRITISH SKULL. FORMS. 129 
This idea received further confirmation from noticing the almost 
invariable accompaniment of such traces of artificial modification, 
with more or less inequality in the two sides of the head. In the 
extremely transformed skulls of the Flathead Indians, and of the 
Natchez, Peruvians, and other ancient nations by whom the same 
barbarous practice was encouraged, the extent of this deformity is 
frequently such as to excite surprise that it could have proved com- 
patible with the healthful exercise of any vital functions. But the 
aspect in which it is now purposed to review the snbject of artificial 
modifications of the human cranium, in relation to ancient British 
skull-forms, was suggested, in the same paper above referred to, when 
pointing out the mistaken idea adopted by Dr. Morton, that such un- 
symmetrical conformation, or irregularity of form, is peculiar to 
american crania.* The latter remark, I then observed, is too wide a 
generalization. I have repeatedly noted the like unsymmetrical 
- characteristics in the brachycephalic crania of Scottish barrows; and 
it has occurred to my mind, on more than one occasion, whether 
such may not furnish an indication of some partial compression, 
dependent, it may be, on the mode of nurture im infancy, having 
tended, in their case also, if not to produce, to exaggerate the short 
longitudinal diameter, which constitutes one of their most remarkable 
characteristics. 
The idea thus expressed, in a paper read before the American 
Scientific Association at Montreal, as well as at the Dublin meeting 
of the British Association in 1857, was the result of observations 
made before leaving Scotland in 1853. Ove section of the Pre- 
historic Annals uf Scotland is devoted to a discussion as to the 
ethnological significance of the crania of Scottish Tumuli; and after 
its publication I availed myself of every favourable opportunity for 
adding to the rare materials illustrative of that interesting depart- 
ment. In pursuing such researches my attention was repeatedly 
drawn to the unsymmetrical proportions of ancient brachycephalic 
skulls, and to their peculiar truncated form, accompanied, as in the 
mound skull of the Scioto Valley, by an abrupt flattening of the 
occiput which I soon began to suspect was due to artificial causes. 
Since then the facilities derived from repeated examinationsof American 
collections have familiarized me, not only with the extreme varieties 
of form of which the human head is susceptible under the influence of 
artificial compression; but also with the less marked changes undesign- 
edly resulting from such seemingly slight causes as the constant 
* Orania Americana, p.115. Types Of Mankind, p44. 2=2«2~—~—C— RIOT A 
Vou. VIII. L 
