of certain Ancient British Skull Forms. 65 
the square and compact proportions characteristic of British 
brachycephalic crania. It also exhibits, in the vertical 
outline, the truncated wedge form of the type. In the 
most strongly marked examples of this form, the vertical or 
flattened occiput is a prominent feature, accompanied gene- 
rally with parietal breadth, from which it abruptly narrows 
at the occiput. The proportions of this class of crania were 
already familiar to me before the discovery of the Juniper 
Green example ; but it had not before occurred to me to 
-ascribe any of their features to other than natural causes. 
But the circumstances attending its discovery gave peculiar 
interest to whatever was characteristic in the skull and its 
accompanying relics, handled for the first time as evidences 
of the race and age of the freshly-opened cist, discovered 
almost within sight of the Scottish capital, and yet pertain- 
ing to prehistoric times. The skull was carried home in 
my hand, a distance of several miles, and its truncated out- 
line, and still more, its flattened occiput, attracted special 
attention, and gave rise to conversation with my friend 
Mr Robert Chambefs, who had accompanied me on this 
exploratory excursion. With the temptation of a novel 
discovery, I was at first disposed to recognise the traces of 
art in this abbreviated form, not only as exaggerating the 
natural characteristics, but as a possible source of their pro- 
duction. But a comparison with examples of the true 
dolichocephalic skull, to which I had already assigned 
priority in point of time, sufficed to dispel that illusion. At 
a subsequent meeting of the Society of Antiquaries of Scot- 
land, I accompanied the presentation of the cranium and 
urn with an account of the circumstances of their discovery, 
and some remarks on the novel features noticeable in the 
skull. Unfortunately the printing of the Society’s Pro- 
ceedings, which had been suspended for some time, was 
not resumed till the following season; and no record of 
this communication was preserved beyond the title. 
Another skull in the same collection, found under some- 
what similar circumstances in a cist at Lesmurdie, Banff- 
shire, has the vertical occiput accompanied by an unusual 
parietal expansion and want of height, suggestive of the 
NEW SERIES.—VOL. XVIII. NO. 1.—JguLY 1863. I | 
