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XXIV. — A Contribution to the Craniology of the People of Scotland. 

 Part I., Anatomical. By Professor Sir William Turner, K.C.B., D.C.L., F.R.S. 



(With Five Plates.) 



(Read November 3, 1902. Issued separately February 10, 1903.) 



Up to the present time no systematic account of the cranial characters of the people 

 of Scotland has been published. Incidental references to, and measurements of, a limited 

 number of Scottish skulls may indeed be found in the writings of various authors, as in 

 Sir Daniel Wilson's Prehistoric Annals of Scotland, in Drs Davis and Thurnam's 

 Crania Britannica, and in Professor Cleland's Memoir on Variations in the Human 

 Skull* Measurements of five Scottish crania are recorded by Sir W. H. Flower in the 

 Osteological Catalogue (Man) of the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons of England, 

 four of which were found amongst the ruins of an ancient Culdee Monastery at St 

 Andrews, and the fifth is said to be that of a Highlander. Dr Barnard Davis, in his 

 Thesaurus Craniorum, gives the measurements of a somewhat larger number, six of 

 which were from Caithness, and one is stated to be a Scottish Highlander. The same 

 skulls have been remeasured and described by Dr J. G. GARSON.t 



A number of years ago I began to form a collection with the view of studying the 

 characters of the skull in the Scottish people ; but the acquisition of authentic examples 

 from definite localities is a slow process, and time is required to obtain sufficient specimens 

 to enable one to form a general conception of their form and proportions. Every teacher 

 of Anatomy has, of course, the material provided by his practical rooms, but the greater 

 number of these crania are of necessity cut in pieces in the course of the dissection ; as 

 a rule also, so little is known of the history of the waifs and strays of humanity who 

 come within the provisions of the Anatomy Act, that in many instances it is difficult to 

 ascertain their nationality or race, though presumably in Edinburgh the majority would 

 naturally be Scotch. As belonging also to the pauper part of the community, one can- 

 not obtain from the study of their skulls a due conception of the cranial type of the 

 educated and well-to-do classes. It is therefore to a limited extent only that I have 

 employed in this investigation specimens from the dissecting room, and not unless I 

 could ascertain either the name of the person, or from other satisfactory reason feel 

 tolerably certain that the skull was that of a Scot. 



I have consequently looked elsewhere for additions to my material, and have been 

 fortunate to obtain, through the kind interest taken in the subject by several former 

 pupils, and from other friendly sources, skulls from known localities, from Shetland in the 

 North to Wigtonshire in the South, and from lona in the West to Dunbar in the East. 



* Philosophical Transactions, 1869. 



t Osteology of the ancient inhabitants of the Orkney Islands. Journal Anthropological Institute, vol. xiii., 18&3. 

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