of certain Ancient British Skull Forms. 53 
on a head of remarkably brachycephalic proportions and 
great natural posterior breadth. The forehead is fully 
arched, the glabella prominent, and the whole character of 
the frontal bone is essentially different from the Indian type. 
The sutures are very much ossified, and even to some extent 
obliterated. So early as 1857, when discussing Dr Morton’s 
theory of one uniform cranial type pervading the whole 
ancient and modern tribes of North and South America, 
with the single exception of the Esquimaux, I remarked, 
“J think it extremely probable that further investigation will 
tend to the conclusion that the vertical or flattened occiput, 
instead of being a typical characteristic, pertains entirely to 
the class of artificial modifications of the natural cranium 
familiar to the American ethnologist alike in the disclosures 
of ancient graves, and in the customs of widely separated 
living tribes.”* 
This idea received further confirmation from noticing the 
almost invariable accompaniment of such traces of artificial 
modification, with more or less inequality in the two sides 
of the head. In the extremely transformed skulls of the 
Flathead Indians, and of the Natchez, Peruvians, and other 
ancient nations by whom the same barbarous practice was 
encouraged, the extent of this deformity is frequently such 
as to excite surprise that it could have proved compatible 
with the healthful exercise of any vital functions. But the 
aspect in which it is now purposed to review the subject of 
artificial modifications of the human cranium, in relation to 
ancient British skull forms, was suggested, in the same 
paper above referred to, when pointing out the mistaken 
idea adopted by Dr Morton, that such unsymmetrical con- 
formation, or irregularity of form, is peculiar to American 
crania.t The latter remark, I then observed, is too wide a 
generalisation. JI have repeatedly noted the like unsym- 
metrical characteristics in the brachycephalic crania of 
Scottish barrows, and it has occurred to my mind, on more 
than one occasion, whether such may not furnish an indi- 
cation of some partial compression, dependent, it may be, 
* Edinburgh Philosophical Journal, n.s,, vol. vii. p. 24. Canadian Journal, 
vol. ii. p. 406. 
+ Crania Americana, p. 115. Types of Mankind, p. 444. 
