242 PRINCIPAL SIP WILLIAM TURNER ON 



Numerous skulls from the English Barrows have been examined and described 

 by Thurnam, * Rolleston, f Garson, | Mortimer and Wright § in their respective 

 memoirs. Thurnam's aphorism " Long barrows, long skulls," based on the study 

 of the Long Barrows in the south-west of England, has been confirmed by the 

 description by Rolleston of skulls from long barrows in Yorkshire and other northern 

 counties — that in no skull from any long barrow did the breadth bear to the length 

 so high a value as that of 80 to 100. The mean cephalic index in Thurnam's 

 specimens was 71*4, in Rolleston's 72 "6. In the neolithic series in my Table I the 

 index was 72"8, the maximum of which was only 76. The skulls from the Round or 

 Short Barrows were preponderatingly brachycephalic in the south-western counties, 

 but in Yorkshire nearly one-half were dolichocephalic, which doubtless indicated a 

 large proportion of intermixture or crossing of the bronze-age brachycephali with 

 their predecessors the neolithic builders of the long barrows. Thurnam, in his table 

 of measurements of twenty-five long-barrow skulls, gave the mean height as 174 

 mm., and the mean breadth as 171 mm. Rolleston's measurements of ten long- 

 barrow skulls from Swell in Gloucestershire gave the mean height at 76*3 and the 

 mean breadth at 72 "6 ; in both series, therefore, the height exceeded the breadth, 

 which contrasted with my measures of the neolithic Scottish skulls. In the skulls 

 from the round or short barrows the breadth exceeded the height, as was the case 

 with the series of brachycephali from the short cists in Scotland. 



Several observers have pointed out that skulls from short cists and barrows, 

 whilst as a rule brachycephalic in type, are not uniform in many of their other 

 characters. Dr Low has shown || that a large proportion of skulls from the cists 

 in the Aberdeen district were distinguished by their great relative width, hyper- 

 brachycephalic, that the breadth -height index was low, the parieto-occipital region 

 flattened, the supraciliary ridges moderate, the face low and broad, and the lower 

 jaw not heavy or strong ; moreover, the people were of low stature. Rolleston 

 regarded the brachycephalic type in which the stature was high as having a marked 

 sloping forehead, prominent supraciliaries, projecting nose, upper jaw frequently pro- 

 gnathic. Dr Wright's series of skulls from short barrows in East Yorkshire con- 

 tained so large a proportion of dolicho- and mesaticephalic skulls that the brachy- 

 cephalic specimens were not equal in number to both the other types. 



The Stature is a factor of importance in the study of the skeleton of prehistoric 

 man. Unfortunately, in my specimens the long bones were so much injured that the 

 measurements were imperfect. In the Oban Mackay Cave I estimated from the 

 length of the femur the stature of its neolithic occupant as 5 feet 4 inches. The 



* Memoirs Anthrop. Soc, London, vol. i, pp. 120, 459, 1863-4. 



t Skulls described in Greknwell's British Barrows, reprinted in Rolleston's Scientific Papers and Addresses, 

 edited by W. Turner, 1884. 



% "Long- Barrow Skulls," Jowrn. Anth. Frist,, vol. xxii, 1893 ; "Orkney Islanders," Joum. Anth. Inst., vol. xiii,1883. 



§ Jowrn. A mil. "ml Ph/ys., vols, xxxviii, xxxix, 1904, 1905. 



|| Proc. A mil. Anthrop. Soc, Univ. Aberdeen, 1904-1906, p. 146. 



