294 RACE HEAD-FORMS AND THEIR 



aod the Native were ou a par physically and intellectually; and while 

 the former was preeminent in all warlike attributes, the latter excelled 

 in the refinements of a civilisatioQ borrowed both from the pagan 

 Roman and the Christian missionary. There was nothing therefore- to 

 prevent a speedy and complete amalgamation. But if this was an 

 admixture of a dolichocephalic with a brachycephalic race, the result 

 should be a hj'brid skull of intermediate form; whereas the modern 

 Anglo-Saxon head is essentially longer than the continental Germanic 

 type." That the immediate source of this long head-form is native, 

 i. e., British, is the aim of the whole argument. After marshalling a 

 variety of evidence, in proof of a long head being characteristic alike of 

 the ancient Gaul and Briton, the result, so far, is thus summed up : 

 " It accordingly appears, thus far, from the various authorities referred 

 to, that considerable unanimity prevails in the ascription of an excess 

 of longitudinal diameter as one of the most marked characteristics of 

 the Celtic cranium. A long but low frontal development, in which, 

 as M. Pruner-Bey defines it, ' The forehead of the ancient Celt gains 

 in length what it loses in height;' a flattening of the parietals, and a 

 tendency toward occipital prolongation, are all more or less strongly 

 asserted as characteristic of the same head-form." 



The conflicting evidence is next produced, and by treating the native 

 element as the unknown quantity, in relation to results following from 

 the assumed amalgamation of pre-Celtic and post-Boman races with the 

 population on which the Romans intruded, this result is arrived at : "It 

 thus appears that where the Celtic element most predominates, the 

 longer form of head is found. It is also noticeable that there are 

 indications of the Gaelic and Erse type of head being longer than the 

 British. The results, as a whole, of the classification of the known 

 and unknown elements in tabular form, appear to involve the assign- 

 ment of dolichocephalic characteristics to the undetermined Celtic 

 element both of the French and English head." 



This forms the natural sequence of ideas involved in another ethnical 

 proposition : that of absorption as contra-distinguished from absolute 

 extirpation of races. This idea, suggested in different aspects, in rela- 

 tion to other propositions, is thus summed up in my Prehistoric Man . 

 (1st Ed., 1862, Vol. II., p. 340). " From all this it would seem to be 

 justly inferred that ethnological displacement and extinction must be 

 regarded in many, probably in the majority of cases, not as amounting 

 to a literal extirpation, but only as equivalent to absorption. Such 



