246 PRINCIPAL SIR WILLIAM TURNER ON 



in the mean were mesocephalic ; some approximated to the dolichocephalic, others 

 to the brachycephalic type, the tendency to which was associated with a low or 

 chamaecephalic cranium. 



France in palaeolithic days had a longheaded race and their neolithic successors 

 were also, dolichocephalic. Skulls which were found in a gravel pit at Grenelle 

 near Paris, believed by some to be of Pleistocene age, were however brachy- 

 cephalic, and are considered by others to resemble those of the bronze period. 

 Philippe Salmon analysed * the proportions of six hundred and eighty-eight skulls 

 of the stone age in France, and stated that 57 per cent, were dolichocephalic; 21 

 per cent, mesocephalic (index from 77 to 80) ; 21 per cent, brachycephalic. The 

 majority in the dolichocephali had the index 73 and 74, in the brachycephali 80 

 to 82. He distinguished in the dolichocephali an older quaternary type and a 

 newer or neolithic type, in which the occiput did not project (chignon occipital), 

 and he named it the Genay Typus. 



Ample evidence exists, therefore, of the presence of brachycephalic centres in 

 countries which had or now have coast lines opposite to Britain, and the question 

 arises from which of these came the roundheaded invaders of Britain who constructed 

 the round barrows and the short cists. Many ethnographers consider that they 

 had come from France, landed on the coast to the south of the Thames, and had 

 gradually spread through England, thence northward into Scotland, so that the 

 diffusion took place from one original centre of invasion and must haver occupied a 

 considerable period of time. The recognition of definite brachycephalic centres of 

 population in Scandinavian countries opens up a wider field of inquiry. These people 

 had access to the sea, and then as now were doubtless not disinclined to maritime 

 adventure across the North Sea ; their boats may possibly have been sufficiently 

 large and strong to enable them to have made settlements on the east coast of 

 Scotland distinct from the invasion on th.e south coast of England. The Aberdeen 

 cists have disclosed skeletons of short stature with skulls of hyperbrachycephalic 

 proportions, flattened occiput, and moderate supraciliary ridges, which contrasted 

 with the skulls from the round barrows in England, the skeletons in which were 

 taller, and with a proportion of the skulls from the Lothians, in which the cephalic 

 index was lower and the occipital squama approximated in form to the dolicho- 

 cephalic type, while the supraciliary ridges were very prominent. Associated with 

 these physical differences was the greater prevalence of the beaker urn in the short 

 cists in the north-east of Scotland and of the bowl-shaped urn in the Lothians. The 

 inference drawn by Mr Abercromby that the latter shape did not appear until 

 towards the close of the beaker period, points to their possible introduction through 

 a later wave of invasion by brachycephali who had undergone some crossing with a 

 longheaded race, which had modified the relative breadth of the cranium and led to 

 an approximation towards the dolichocephalic type. Although the bowl-shaped urns 



* Quoted by G. Ret/.ius, Crania Suecica Antiqua, p. 49. 



