The Iberians. 581 



to have furnished the chief elements of the population 

 elsewhere.' 



Mr. Skene is of opinion that ' an examination of 

 the ancient sepulchral remains in Britain gives us reason 

 to suppose, that a people possessing certain physical 

 characteristics (those of the Silures), had once spread 

 over the whole of both the British Isles.' Quoting 

 from Professor Dawkins' ' Cave Hunting,' that author 

 states, on the authority of Dr. Thurnham, that in the 

 'long barrows and chambered-gallery graves of our 

 island ' the ( crania belong, with scarcely an exception,' 

 to ' the Dolichocepbali or long-skulls ' of the neolithic 

 age, as shown by f the invariable absence of bronze and 

 the frequent presence of polished stone implements.' 

 ' In the round barrows, on the other hand, in which 

 bronze articles are found, they belong mainly to the 

 Brachycephali or broad-skulls.' These belonged to 

 Celtic people. 



On the evidence of skulls and flint implements, it 

 has been reasonably surmised that an Iberian population 

 once spread over the whole of Britain and Ireland. 

 But from the dawn of definite European history, the 

 dark populations of Iberian type have constantly been 

 losing ground in the world. In Spain their language 

 remains, but their blood is now far from pure, but in 

 Britain if any trace of their ancient tongue is left, 

 it has been so largely overlapped and worn away by 

 succeeding waves of Celtic invasion, that probably its 

 existence is scarcely recognisable, though the influence 

 of their blood is perpetuated in the black hair and dark 

 eyes of many of the inhabitants of Wales, both South 

 and North. 



At what time the first appearance of a Celtic people 

 in Britain took place no one knows, but however this 



