THE CRANIOLOGY OF THE PEOPLE OF SCOTLAND. 243 



femur was platymeric and the tibia platyknemic. Thurnam and Eolleston have 

 estimated, from the length of the femora, the mean stature of the neolithic 

 occupants of the long barrows as 5 feet 5 inches to 5 feet 6 inches, and that of the 

 brachycephali of the round barrows as 5 feet 8 inches to 5 feet 9 inches. As a 

 rule, the long bones in the taller brachycephali had stronger muscular ridges than 

 in the neolithic skeletons. Subsequent measurements, however, of the Aberdeen 

 series of brachycephalic skeletons have given a range of height from 5 feet to 

 5 feet 7 inches, the mean being 5 feet 3 inches, indicating therefore a shorter 

 stature than with the round heads of the English round barrows. 



The coarse Pottery in the form of Urns contained in the short cists, as well as 

 the cinerary urns for the reception of the calcined bones, have been investigated with 

 great care by the Hon. John Abercromby,* who compared them with the urns found 

 in the English barrows and in corresponding interments on the Continent. He con- 

 sidered that the beaker, or drinking-cup, type is the oldest in time, dating probably 

 from 2000 to 1500 B.C., coinciding with the earliest invasion of Britain by the 

 bronze-age brachycephali, and introduced by them. He thought that the bronze-age 

 people had but little knowledge of the use of metal until near the close of the beaker 

 period. The bowl-shaped, or food-vessel, type came into use apparently during the 

 later stage of that period ; like the beaker urn, it was associated in the Scottish short 

 cists with burials by inhumation. The cinerary type of urn for the reception of 

 the ashes was naturally taller and more capacious for cremated adult bodies than 

 the ceremonial beaker and bowl-shaped forms. Its introduction marked the gradual 

 cessation of inhumation in cists ; it ultimately superseded that form of interment, and 

 of necessity destroyed the physical characters of the skull and skeleton. This type 

 has been found in a few cists side by side with inhumed bodies, at others independ- 

 ently, and often collected into cemeteries. Abercromby considered that it continued 

 for about seven hundred years to between 700 and 600 B.C. 



Drs Low and Bryce described fifteen beaker urns in the short cists in Aberdeen- 

 shire, Sutherland, and Caithness, and established their association with the highly 

 brachycephalic skulls and the relatively low stature of the people who built these 

 cists. In the short cists specified in Tables II to V and in the text, beaker urns 

 were also found in those from Fyrish, Duns, Kelso, Windy Mains (East Lothian), St 

 Andrews, and Largs, in addition to the N.orth-Eastern group. Mr Abercromby has 

 included in his list a number of specimens from other counties in Scotland which 

 corresponded with the migration of the bronze-age people from south to north and 

 from east to west. He noted their occurrence in various parts of England, in which 

 the beaker period lasted during fifteen or sixteen generations. He referred also to 

 examples on the Continent in the Iberian peninsula, Italy, the Rhine, North Germany, 

 Saxony, Bohemia, Hungary, France, Holland, Holstein, and Jutland, but no mention 

 is made of specimens in Sweden and Norway. 



* Bronze-Age Pottery of Great Britain and Ireland, Oxford, 1912 ; op. cit., p. 173. 

 TRANS. ROY. S0C. EDIN., VOL". LI, PART I (NO. 5). 34 



