170 Mr. George Tate on Ancient Sculptured Eocls, 8fc. 



arising chiefly from the results of recent investigations into 

 the ethnology of the people who were buried long ages 

 ago in the little stone chests found in the district, covered 

 heaps of stones and earth. The first cranium critically ex- 

 amined and described, was found in a cist at Tosson, near 

 Rothbury, along with urns, cannel coal ornaments, bronze 

 buckle, and an iron weapon ; and this proved to be the broad 

 short form called Brachy-cephalic. Since that time, some 

 dozen other crania have been found and examined, all 

 obtained within the area of the ancient province of the 

 Otadeni — from Ilderton, North Sunderland, Alnwick, 

 Grindstone Law, in Northumberland, and from near Dunse 

 and Cockburnspath, in Berwickshire ; and all these crania 

 were of the same type as that from Tosson. This shape of 

 skull, however, is not supposed to correspond with that of 

 the modern Celts — of the Irish, Welsh, or Gaels — which is 

 represented to be closely allied to that of the English and 

 other nations belonging to the great Aryan family, whose 

 skulls are of the Dolicho-cephalic type or long oval form. 



Retzius and other Scandinavian ethnologists refer the 

 Brachy-cephalic crania to men of the stone age, Avhose 

 descendants now live in the inhospitable regions of Lapland ; 

 and Dr. Wilson, in his last edition of his " Pre-Historic 

 Annals," has adopted the hypothesis of there having been in 

 Britain two pre-Celtic races ; and, strangely enough, he has 

 placed the Tosson skull among the stone age, and bronze 

 age men, ignoring the fact that it was associated with an iron 

 weapon. 



There is a strong tendency at present to lengthen out the 

 age of our old antiquities ; against this we must guard, 

 especially when it is connected with refined theorising whicli 

 would distort facts to suit artificial classifications. Ethnology 

 alone however, cannot yet be taken as an authoritative guide ; 

 the data are not yet sufficiently exact and numerous to enable 

 any one to dogmatise as to the typical form of the modern 

 Celtic skull. Before drawing a conclusion, we must gather 

 additional information from other lines of research. Language 

 gives important evidence ; for the old names of hills, rivers, 

 and other prominent objects — names given by the aboriginal 

 inhabitants, which oftentimes survive the revolutions of race 

 —are Celtic. Chalmers in his " Caledonia," has, with great 

 ability and research, proved this. The era of one ancient 

 British Oppidum, similar to Greaves Ash, has been linked 

 with the Celtic race ; for in Carn Brae in Cornwall, coins of 



