ANCIENT AND MODERN CELT. 379 



type of skull, with prominent parietal tubers and truncated occiput. 

 This is the form chiefly occurring in native British graves of the 

 Roman period ; and on this, as well as on other grounds, it is assumed 

 by Dr. J. B. Davis and others to be the true type of the British Celt, 

 I have already advanced reasons for thinking that a race of Brachy- 

 cephali, Turanian or other, to whom the rude stone arts of prehis- 

 toric Britain chiefly pertained, intervened between the Kumbecephali 

 of the long chambered barrows and the true Celtse.* The linguistic 

 affiuities between the latter and the great Aryan family of nations* 

 prove that the Celtse branched off from the parent stock subsequent 

 to the evolution of numbers, the development of metallurgy and many 

 other arts of civilisation. The contents of the earlier cairns, crom- 

 lechs, and barrows, do not therefore correspond with their progress 5 

 and the very term cromlech, — gael. cromadh, Wei. cromen, a roof or 

 vault, and clach, or lech, a stone : — indicates as total ignorance of its 

 sepulchral character, as the English name : Druidical Altar. 



In this state of the question it becomes a matter of interest to 

 ascertain what direct evidence is still accessible, and how far it can be 

 made available for throwing light on the physical, and more especially 

 the cranial characteristics of the Celt. 



One form of the Anglo Roman period — the historical age of Celtic 

 Britain, — undoubtedly approximates to the brachycephalic type, not- 

 withstanding many aberrations. But on the other hand this is by no 

 means the predominant skull-form of the modern "Welchinan, the 

 Highlander of the most purely Celtic districts of Scotland, or the 

 seemingly unadulterated native population of south-western Ireland. 

 On this subject Dr. Anders Retzius remarks : " During an excursion 

 in Great Britain in 1855, I was able to satisfy myself anew that the 

 dolichocephalic form is predominant in England proper, in "Wales, in 

 Scotland, and in Ireland. Most of the Dolichocephalse of these coun- 

 tries have the hair black, and are very similar to Celts."j' The Anglo- 

 Saxon cannot be affirmed to be a pure race. Apart from later Danish, 

 Norse, and Norman intermixture : it differs mainly, as I conceive, 

 from its Germanic congeners, by reason of a large admixture of Celtic 

 blood, traceable primarily to the intermarriage of Anglish and Saxon 



* Prehistoric Annals of Scotland, sec. ed., vol. 1. part I., chap. IX. Canadian 

 Journal, vol. VII., p. 405. 



^Archives des Sciences Physiques et Naturelles, Geneva, 1860, Smithsonian 

 Report. 



