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The Thirty-Fourth General Meeting. 



Britons. Whilst some believe them to have been nearly exterminated 

 or driven westward into Brittany, others, and amongst them Pro- 

 fessor Huxley, consider that the amount of Celtic blood in the veins 

 of the modern Englishman is considerably in excess of what has 

 hitherto been supposed. The investigations of Dr. Beddoe in 

 England and of Dr. Broca and Topinard in France tend to confirm 

 this view, and to show that in the existing population of Europe and 

 in the West of England and Wales in particular, a small dark race 

 may still be seen, such as would correspond to the survivors of the 

 aboriginal long barrow Britons. If, as seems probable from this, 

 the Britons continued to exist in considerable numbers during the 

 Saxon epoch, what became of the two distinct races, the long-headed 

 dark, short, people, and the tall, round-headed fair people, revealed 

 to us by the excavations in the barrows ? Did they mix, and in 

 mixing blend their physical peculiarities, or did they maintain an 

 independent existence, retaining the stature, colour, and head-form 

 that belonged to their respective stocks ? In the investigation of 

 this matter we are met with difficulties in the way of determining 

 the nationality of skeletons belonging to the Roman age. The 

 Romans did not invade this country alone, but brought with them 

 auxiliaries from all parts of the world, who afterwards colonised the 

 country, so that, as Mr. Wright has pointed out in his 'Celt 

 Roman, and Saxon/ a skeleton of this period may be of any 

 nationality. It may be that of a Fortensian, a Tungrian, a 

 Vetation, a Dalmation, a Crispian, a Spaniard, or a Dacian. These 

 colonists, however, appear to have settled more frequently in the 

 east and north of Britain. In the West of England, and especially 

 in spots that are remote from the main centres of Roman occupation, 

 the probability of coming upon the skeletons of Britons is very 

 much greater. Dr. Thurnam was of opinion that the Durotriges 

 of Dorsetshire and the Dobuni of Gloucestershire were aboriginal 

 races whose territory may have been encroached upon by the Belga3, 

 but was never entirely overrun by them. He also draws a dis- 

 tinction between the unchambered long barrows of Wiltshire and 

 the chambered long barrows of Gloucestershire, for, whilst twenty- 

 seven skulls from the unchambered long barrows of Wiltshire had 



