DISTORTIONS OF THE HUMAN CRANIUM. 427 



position ; notwithstanding which, the narrow forehead and high 

 vertex above give a decidedly pyramidal aspect to the front view of 

 the skull, such as is considered characteristic of the Turanian type, 

 and has before been observed in skulls from the chambered long- 

 barrows of this country. The face has been small, short, and narrow ; 

 the superior maxilla is very short ; the alveolar processes (intermax- 

 illaries) not so prominent as in many skulls from the round barrows j 

 and, though the upper incisors overlap the lower, the jaw is tolerably 

 orthognathic. The teeth are medium size ; the enamel of the crowns 

 moderately reduced by attrition, but not sufficiently so to expose 

 much of the dentine. The canine teeth are much smaller than is 

 usual in the British series ; and this is particularly obvious in the less 

 external prominence of the fangs of these teeth in the upper jaw, 

 upon which the semiprognathic and broad, muzzle-like character of 

 the jaw in the skulls to which we refer seems in part to depend. In 

 the lower jaw, which deviates considerably from the normal type, a 

 very prominently angular and square, but narrow, chin is observed ; 

 the base is unusually thick, measuring seven-tenths of an inch at the 

 thickest parts ; the ascending rami are rectangular and broad, and 

 the angles remarkably everted. The breadth of the base of the jaw 

 — as is very unusual, — nearly equals the greatest breadth of the face, 

 and adds materially to the pyramidal appearance of the front view of 

 the skull." 



Dr. Thurnam further refers to another skull from the same cham- 

 ber, as one which most nearly resembles it in form. "It belonged 

 to the skeleton occupying the south-west angle of the chamber. All 

 its characteristics are less marked ; but it bears a striking resem- 

 blance to the former skull, and, like it, presents no marks of violence : 

 they are possibly those of brothers. The two skulls which appeared 

 to have been fractured during life are of less elongated form, and 

 otherwise differ from those before us, — as is consistent with the view 

 that they belonged to slaughtered slaves, taken perhaps from some 

 other tribe." 



It thus appears that the researches of successive craniologists 

 labouring without concert, and controlled in their deductions by 

 diverse theories, nevertheless all point to the fact of certain marked 

 differences distinguishing the crania of the Chambered Barrows from 

 those of the ordinary earth-mounds and cists. The neglect of this 

 important branch of inquiry by Sir R. C. Hoare, in his researches 



