486 ETHNOLOGY. AND ARCH.EOLOGT. 



terruine the normal form, and then t<> ucertain the usual deviations from it. This 

 simple method, which has been employed in the elucidation of other natural ob. 

 jects, will reduce the subject to as great order as it admits of, and render descrip- 

 tion and delineation easy to be understood. A knowledge of the general charac- 

 ter of the British skull is nut to he obtained from the examination of those belong- 

 ing to one tribe only, but from a comparative investigation of crania derived from 

 many. It is believed by Mr. Davis th.it a skull derived from the Green Gate-Hill 

 Barrow, exhibits the true typical form of the ancient British cranium. Its most 

 marked d'stinc: - are, the shortness of the face, which is. at the same 



time, rug ge i * i;h elevations and depression-, the indications of wild passions oper- 

 ating on the muscles of expression ; zygomatic arches not unusually expanded ; 

 the nose short, projecting at an angle too great to be graceful ; immediately 

 above its root rises an abrupt prominence occasioned by the large frontul na 

 which pa?- - uto the elevated superciliary ridges, and produces a 



deep depression between 'he nose and forehead, giving to the profile a savage 

 character ; the osseous case for the brain upon the whole not large, rather than 

 small ; the occipitofrontal diameter somewhat contracted, and parietal diameter 

 good. It ranges with the orthognathic crania, or those having upright jaws, and 

 inclines to the > It presents the uncivilized character, but 



from the mass of the brain it has evidently belonged to a savage possessed of 

 power, and fitted to profit by contact with men of other races. 



Having thus enumerated the chief peculiarities of the typical British cranium, 

 Dr. Davis remarks; we may advert to its leidi:.^ aberrant forms, which admit of 

 being arranged in a ample i method. They will be easily understood as 



the abbreviated, or strictly brack ■ the elongated, or dolicho-cephalic ; the 



elevated, or, ue the terms, ;be acro-cephalic ; and the expanded or platy- 



cephalic. 



It must be added, however, such a system as that adopted by Mr. Davis here, of 

 ig under the convenient title of • aberrant for mx" cranial peculiarities of the 

 widest possible diversity, seems irreooQofleable with the law of permanence of ethnic 

 for::.- :deed guarded to an extent not at ail apparent in the above re- 



marks, it would put an end to all ethnical deductions from cranial or osteological 

 evidence. The grounds, however, on which so comnrehensivea statement is based 

 may be looked for in the (urthcon -'•/ Britannica" of the author, ean- 



whilc he thus partially alludes to some of them : — 



Sot s se aberrant forms, the whole series beats the impress of 80 



many similar features, as to shew that it constitutes one natural group. The 

 doiicbo-cephaiic has been supposed to indicate an " Allophylian" or " pre-Celtic" 

 race, but it may probably be regarded as more properly a family peculiarity in 

 some cases, and accidental in others, in which it has been met with in the same 

 Barrow, and in a position proving the interment to be equally ancient, with a cal- 

 varium of the normal form. Stress has been laid upon the circumstance that it has 

 occurred in Chambered Barrowx, resembling the famous one of Xew Grange. The 

 best informed antiquaries accord to these Barrows an extremely early date, but, 

 that they have altogether pi pier and ruder sepulchral cairns, and were 



erected by a distinct antece I -pear to stand in need of much confirmatory 



evidence before they can be admitted with tolerable confidence. 



D. W 



