116 PRE-HISTORIC 



Mr. Bateman, " that the critical examination of all deposits 

 of burnt bones would lead to much curious information re- 

 specting the statistics of suttee and infanticide, both which 

 abominations we are unwillingly compelled, by accumulated 

 evidence, to believe were practised in pagan Britain." From 

 the numerous cases in which the bones of an infant and a 

 woman have been found together in one grave, it seems 

 probable that if any woman died in childbirth, or while 

 nursing, the baby was buried alive with her, as is still the 

 practice among some of the Esquimaux tribes. 



I would particularly urge on those who may in future open 

 any barrows 



1. To record the sex of the person buried ; this is more satis- 

 factorily to be determined from the form of the pelvis, than 

 from the skull. In this manner, we may hope to determine 

 the relative position, and the separate occupations (if any) of 

 the two sexes. 



2. To observe carefully the state of the teeth, from which 

 we may derive information as to the nature of the food. 



3. To preserve carefully any bones of quadrupeds that 

 may be present, in order to ascertain the species, and, in the 

 case of the ox and hog, to determine, if possible, whether 

 they belonged to wild or domesticated individuals. 



As regards the pre-historic races of men we have as yet 

 derived but little definite information from the examination 

 of the tumuli. The evidence, however, appears to show that 

 the Celts were not the earliest colonisers of Northern Europe. 

 Putting on one side the mysterious " kumbecephalic " skulls 

 which have been already alluded to (p. 90), the men of the 

 Stone age in Northern Europe appear to have been brachy- 

 cephalic in a very marked degree, and to have had heavy, 

 overhanging brows. Many ethnologists are inclined to be- 

 lieve that the Turanian race, now represented in Europe by 

 the Fins, Lapps, and probably by the Basques, once occupied 



