Rev. W. Greenwell on Ancient British Tumuli. 205 



to carry back the latest of them to a period which dates 

 many centuries before the time of Csesar. This makes the 

 date B.C. 1000 certainly not too early for the oldest of the 

 round barrows, if, indeed, it is not very much within the age 

 to which they may fairly be attributed. The question, how- 

 ever, is one which is beyond the limits of the present paper, 

 and, indeed, I do not think that we are justified at present, 

 from our want of facts and consequent imperfect knowledge, 

 to come to any conclusion on this subject. From every bar- 

 row, however, which is opened and carefully examined and 

 recorded, we learn something, and I do not despair of obtain- 

 ing data sufficiently numerous and exact to form a chrono- 

 logical basis, which will approach in some measure at least 

 to the truth. The same difficulty does not meet us as to the 

 people whose dead these tumuli cover, and they may safely 

 be ascribed to those tribes which occupied Britain, in its 

 greatest part at least, when the Romans invaded the country, 

 and who were of kindred origin and speech with many of the 

 tribes of Gaul. As to the wider question, relative to the 

 great family to which they belonged, I do not feel competent 

 to enter upon it. Were they Keltse ? An answer must first 

 be given to a primary question — What is the Keltic type ? 

 Now many difficulties, at present, stand in the way of an 

 answer to this, which, until they are solved, make vain, it 

 seems to me, all attempts at a solution of the secondary 

 question. Merely to allude, in conclusion, to one difficulty. 

 The skull, from the round barrows, is eminently brachy- 

 cephalic ; the skull of the modern Irishman or Scotch high- 

 lander, whom we commonly term " Celts," is not brachy- 

 cephalic, and the skull, like a race, never essentially alters — 

 its features are unchangeable. 



ever covered the cists, a feature which I regard as indicative of the latest period 

 of pre-Roman times. A group of small harrows near Market Weighton in the 

 East Riding, contained iron objects, together with bronze articles, which shewed 

 them to be of the later so called " Celtic " period. 



PLATE XIII. 



Mff. 1. Urn, half size, Etall Moor. 



„ 2. Urn, quarter size, Etall Moor. 



„ 3. Urn, half size, Etall Moor. 



„ 4. Flint Knife, full size, Harehope Hill. 



„ 5. Fragment of Urn, half size, Etall Moor. 

 „ 6. Do. do., full size, do. 



„ 7. Flint Knife, full size, Ford Common. 



