The Thirty -Fourth General Meeting, 



accepted by arcliseolog'ists, and about the same time the volume on 

 Prehistoric Times, by Sir John Lubbock, published in 1805, the 

 excavations of Messrs. Lartet and Christy in the bone caves of 

 France, and the treatises on the stone and bronze implements of 

 Great Britain, by Dr. Evans, contributed to establish what had 

 only been lightly touched by the earlier writers. Thurnam re- 

 opened some of the barrows which had been examined by Hoare, 

 and added greatly to the number by his own excavations. Sir 

 Richard had abandoned his excavations in the long barrows as being 

 very unproductive of relics of human workmanship, and, taking no 

 notice of skeletons, he confessed himself unable to derive any 

 satisfactory information from them or to determine the purpose for 

 which they were constructed. Thurnam now showed that besides 

 relics of the Stone Age the long barrows contained the bones of a 

 particular race, small in stature, averaging not more than 5ft. 5*4in. 

 in height, as computed by the measurement of the long bones of 

 twenty-five individuals. They had also the peculiarity of very long 

 heads, the average breadth of which was in proportion to their 

 lengths, as 71 to 100, a much longer head than that of any race 

 now inhabiting Europe. On the other hand, the skeletons found in 

 the round barrows he showed by a computation from the long bones 

 of twenty-seven individuals, measured by himself and others, were 

 those of a people of large stature, averaging 5ft. 8'4in. in height, 

 or 3in. taller than the long barrow people, and having heads rounder 

 than those of any people now inhabiting Europe, the proportion of 

 breadth to length being as 81 to 100. Here, then, we have un- 

 doubtedly one of the most important prehistoric discoveries of our 

 time. By a comparison of the results of his excavations with the 

 scanty notices of aborigines by ancient authors and the investigations 

 of anthropologists into the physical characteristics of the existing 

 races of man, Dr. Thurnam was able to show that these two kinds 

 of skeletons represented two great primitive races of mankind. The 

 tall round-headed skeletons were those of the Celts, a branch of the 

 great nomadic race of the North, which all history records under 

 various names and in innumerable tribes and nations, as having 

 been constantly drifting westward from their original home in 



