298 RACE HEAD-FORMS AND THEIR 



race, prior to the Brachycephalse of the ordinary tumuli, for wHcli I 

 suggested the term Kumbecephalic, from their long, boat-shaped head. 

 The evidence was subsequently challenged as inadequate to sustain so 

 comprehensive a conclusion. But further proofs tend to confirm it ; 

 and since that date all faith in the Celtse being the primeval occupants 

 of Britain has been efi"ectually shaken by the disclosures of traces of 

 Drift-folk, and other primevals, compared with whom British Celts are 

 modern enough. 



Removal from the scenes of such explorations among Britain's pre- 

 historic traces prevented my following out the archaic researches referred 

 to, to their legitimate results. But materials are accessible enough in 

 Canada and the United States for pursuing the inquiry into the cha- 

 racteristic type, or types of the modern British head ; and in 1864 I 

 was able to publish the conclusions, to which further observation has 

 lent additional confirmation : that, amid many subvarieties to be found 

 in the prevalent head-forms of the British Islands, the long British 

 tead is divisible into two sub-types, one of which is characterised by 

 comparatively slight and gradual narrowing, in passing from the parietal 

 to "the frontal region, and with good elevation in the latter; while the 

 other passes somewhat abruptly from a wide parietal to a narrow, more 

 elongated, and depressed frontal region, in which the loss in breadth 

 and height is compensated for by the greater length. But in numerous 

 examples the two types are so interblended as to confirm the idea of a 

 far greater interfusion of Saxon and Celtic blood, than the popular 

 use of the distincti^re terms implies. During the past winter (1868-9) 

 I had an opportunity of testing, by means of the conformateur, the head- 

 forms of a whole battery of Artillerymen recruited in England. The 

 prevalent form was a long oval, with some variations towards the narrower 

 and longer frontal region ; but there was no well-defined predominance 

 of any single uniform shape; no determinate Anglo-Saxon or Celtic 

 type ; but intermediate forms, with greater or less preponderance of one 

 or the other characteristic. 



In seeking to determine both the sources and predominant character 

 of British head-forms, the labours of French ethnologists contribute 

 valuable aid. It is not merely that we recognise the Celtic element as 

 common alike to France and England: Briton and Breton; Gael and 

 Gaul ; Frank, Anglo-Saxon, Dane and Norman : have all contributed 

 — though in very diverse degrees, — to mould the race and history of 

 both countries. Hence any carefully conducted researches which fur- 



