376 PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF THE 



combs of the British Kurabecephali have no claims to a primeyal 

 rank among the recovered traces of early human arts. Suppo- 

 sing them to be three, four, or five thousand years old, grave-mounds, 

 barrows, and tumuli of every form and proportion may have preceded 

 them, and been erased. Neither history nor definite archaeology, 

 moreover, confirms any such " natural order." On the contrary, in 

 Egypt, India, Greece, and Italy ; in Peru, Central America, and even 

 in some of the islands of the Pacific, the oldest traces of architectural 

 or constructive efforts survive in megalith ic remains, ascribed for the 

 most part to unknown and ante-historical races. Less substantial 

 mounds or catacombs, which may have preceded or accompanied them, 

 necessarily experienced the fate of all ephemeral structures ; and it is 

 probably mainly due to the cyclopean masonry of the chambered- 

 barrow builders, that any evidence of the physical characteristics of 

 BO ancient a race are still recoverable. 



But to this race succeeded a short-headed one, the Brachycephali 

 of the later tumuli, which apparently survived in Britain to Roman 

 times. The characteristic skull-form of this period has been repeatedly 

 defined ; and the significance of the vertical or obliquely flattened occi- 

 put of frequent occurrence, has been repeatedly discussed by mein former 

 communications to the Canadian Institute. The point specially to be 

 noted at present is, that not only considerable variations from any as- 

 sumed typical British or Celtic cranium occur ; but that at least two 

 types of the most striking diversity mark the sepulchres of the mega- 

 lithic era, and the seemingly later earth-barrows and cists. Their 

 relative chronology is not indeed of permanent importance in the pres- 

 ent inquiry. Both undoubtedly occur in ante-Christian and ante-Ro- 

 man sepulchres. In referring to the doctrine of a pre-Celtic popula- 

 tion for the British Islands, maintained in my " Prehistoric Annals of 

 Scotland," Dr. Thurnam remarks : " Previous to inquiry as to the 

 form of the skull in any possible pre-Celtic race, it is necessary to de- 

 termine the form of the Celtic skull itself. Proceeding from the known 

 to the unknown, we may then hope to trace the form of the skull in 

 races which may possibly have preceded, or been mingled with the 

 early Celtic population of Britain."* If possible, this is unquestion- 

 ably most desirable ; but as Dr. Thurnam here assumes that there is 



• Crania Britannica. Chap. V. p. 55. The author adds, "such an inquiry i» 

 an important object of the present work." Btit the concluding Decade, with itB 

 Bummary of results from the accnmulated evidence is still unpublished. 



