DISTORXrONS OF THE HUMAN CRANIUM. 409 



rounding surface, and possibly thus marked the traces of the nearly 

 levelled tumulus. Slight as this elevation was, it had proved suffi- 

 cient to prevent the lodgment of water, and hence the cist was found 

 perfectly free from damp. Within tliis a male skeleton lay on its 

 left side. The arms appeared to have been folded over the breast, 

 and the knees drawn up so as to touch the elbows. The head had 

 been supported by a flat waterworn stone for its pillow ; but from 

 this it had fallen to the bottom of the cist, on its becoming detached 

 by the decomposition of the fleshly ligatures ; and, as is common in 

 crania discovered under similar circumstances, it had completely 

 decayed at the part in contact with the ground. A portion of the 

 left side is thus wanting ; but with this exception the skull was not 

 only nearly perfect when found, but the bones are solid and heavy ; 

 and the whole skeleton appeared to me so well preserved as to have 

 admitted of articulation. From the view of the skull engraved in 

 the Crania Britannica, it appears to have been somewhat mutilated 

 since I last examined it. Alongside of the head of the deceased, 

 above the right shoulder, a neat earthen vase had been placed, 

 probably with food or drink. It contained only a little sand and 

 black dust when recovered, uninjured, from the spot where it had 

 been deposited by affectionate hands long centuries before, and is 

 now preserved along with the skull in the Scottish Museum. 



Notwithstanding the hundreds of barrows that have been opened, 

 it is rare indeed to witness an example of the skeleton in situ, so 

 entirely undisturbed as this was. Even where the cist has only been 

 invaded by a partial infiltration of earth or sand, its removal necessi- 

 tates the displacement of the bones ; and when the skeleton has to 

 be exhumed, as is more frequently the case, from the incovering soil, 

 any attempt to represent its actual position must depend to a great 

 extent on the imagination of the artist. Some of such represen- 

 tations, indeed, partake not a little of fancy sketches. Hence 

 the example here described is peculiarly valuable on account of 

 its faithfully revealing to the eye the undisturbed remains of the 

 ancient North Briton, as they had lain since the fleshly tissues de- 

 cayed and left the naked skeleton to its long repose. I have ac- 

 cordingly reproduced, on Plate III. a drawing of the Juniper Grreen 

 cist, from a sketch taken at the time, before a single bone had been 

 displaced. It exhibits the interior of the cist as it appeared on the 

 removal of the covering slab, and suffices to show how far any jjosthu- 



