428 ETHNICAL FORMS AND UNDESIGNED ARtltlCIAL 



among the barrows of Wiltshire, has already been referred to ; yet 

 it was impossible that he could examine, even in a cursory manner, 

 the many crania exhumed by him without acquiring some familiarity 

 with their characteristic form. Accordingly it is of peculiar interest 

 in relation to the present inquiry to note that when, in 1817, he 

 communicated to the Society of Antiquaries the notice of a Chambered 

 Barrow at Stoney Littleton, in Somersetshire, which attracted his 

 attention as a species of tumulus altogether new to him, he concludea 

 his description by remarking : — " I shall now request the attention 

 of my brother Antiquaries, and especially of those versed in the 

 science of craniology, to the two skulls discovered in this tumulus, 

 which appear to be totally different in their formation from any 

 others which our researches have led us to examine."* He does 

 not enter into any general comparison, but indicates their remarkably 

 depressed foreheads as the most noticeable feature : but the frag- 

 ments of the skulls have been traced by Dr. Thurnam to the 

 Philosophical Institution at Bristol ; and their general resemblance 

 to the corresponding portions of the Uley cranium, — one of the 

 most characteristic of all the skulls recovered from Chambered 

 Barrows, — is pronounced by him as sufficiently apparent. f 



So obvious and constant are the points of difference between the 

 brachycephalic crania of the ordinary earthen mounds, and the doli- 

 chocephalic crania of the Chambered Barrows, that Dr. Thurnam, in 

 his early notice of one from Littleton-Drew, "Wiltshire, asks : " Can 

 the long-headed builders of these chambered barrows have been some 

 Iberian or Ibero-Phoenician settlers ?" But further observations on 

 this class of crania have suggested other ideas in regard to them ; and 

 accordingly, after the description of those of "West Kennet, quoted 

 ■Bbove, he takes into consideration the possible influence of artificial 

 appliances in the production or modification of this remarkable 

 type of head, and then proceeds : " In like manner as the Ballard 

 Down skull (Plate 45 of Crania Britannica,) recalls the cranial 

 form of many American and Polynesian tribes, so does that now 

 described the narrow and elongated skulls of the Australians and 

 Esquimaux. The Ballard Down skull bears marks of artificial flat- 

 tening of the occiput ; this calls to mind the artificial .lateral flatten- 

 ing of the skull characteristic of the ancient people called Macro- 



* Archcelogia, Vol. XIX., pi. 47. 



t Crania Britannica, Dec. I., pi. 5-€. 



