ANCIENT AND MODERN CELT. 3/7 



a specific Celtic skull-form, both the above forms — to the correct 

 knowledge of which he has largely contributed, — cannot be grouped 

 under it. At least two types of extreme diversity belong to the ancient 

 British pagan period : the one, the extremely long skull of the mega- 

 lithic tombs ; the other, the short aud broad brachycephalic skull 

 abounding in British barrows of ante-Roman and Roman centuries ; 

 while the ovoid dolichocephalic skull of the pagan Saxon is interme- 

 diate in form, when compared with the two. 



More than one hypothesis is open to us to account for such diversi- 

 ties. There is the probabihty of an Allophylian, possibly Finnic, 

 Turanian, or other prehistoric race, which was in occupation of Britain 

 before the first Celtic immigration. Retzius from the examination of 

 two Basque skulls was led to the conviction, which accorded with his 

 preconceived opinions, that the Basque head-form is brachycephalic. 

 M. A. d'Abbadie confirmed this opinion by his observations on the 

 living head ; and the result has been generally accepted as an estab- 

 lished fact. But recently, two members of the Anthropological Society 

 of Paris recovered with their own hands, from a Basque cemetery, in 

 the province of Guipuscoa, sixty crania, which are now deposited in the 

 museum of the Society. Of these, M. Paul Broca remarks, in his ad- 

 dress delivered before the Society in 1863 : "Of the sixty Basque 

 skulls in your collection, two or three only are really brachycephalous ; 

 most of them are altogether dolichocephalous ; and, what was quite 

 unexpected, the mean type of the series is much more dolichocephal- 

 ous than that of the French in the north." Here it is seen M. Broca 

 unhesitatingly styles them " Basque skulls ;" but though the old 

 Iberian tongue survives in the Basque district, its race may be, and 

 probably is, not less mixed than the Gaelic speaking people of the 

 Lewes, for example, among whom both Finnic and Norse features and 

 head-forms are affirmed by one recent experienced observer, Captain 

 Thomas, R.N. to predominate.* The unexpected results of the ana- 

 tomical study of so large a number of crania from a cemetery within 

 the Basque area, are, however, deserving of the most careful study. 

 They help to add to the regret that the abundant dark locks of the 

 Silures prevented Tacitus from reporting on the form of head of the 

 British tribes to whom an Iberian origin was ascribed. 



To the comparative proportions of the head-forms of Guipuscoa and 

 the north of France I shall again refer. But, returning meanwhile to 



* M.S. Letters to the author. Frehist. J.nnals, Vol. II. p. 208. 



