284 Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh. [sess. 
ably below the present level of the adjoining field. As already 
mentioned, the walls of the cist were constructed of red sandstone 
flags set on edge, sometimes forming a double row, in which case 
the intervening crevices were said to have been stuffed with clay. 
The cover, which had to be broken for removal, was a massive 
block of conglomerate. Both these kinds of rock are common in 
the district. The dimensions of the cist were 4J feet long, 21- 
feet wide, and 2 feet deep. The body was apparently in a sitting 
posture, but it, especially the skull, as well as the urn, had been 
badly damaged by the breakiug up of the cover-stone. 
The outcome of our consultation over these interesting 
memorials of the past was to authorise me to procure a report 
on the portion of the urn from the Hon. John Abercromby, who 
has made a special study of the ornamentation and chronological 
range of this class of sepulchral pottery ; and to submit the skull 
to Professor Cunningham, to see if its fragmentary condition 
would permit of a report being made on its anatomical 
characteristics. 
General Remarks. 
From Dr Cunningham’s report it will be seen that these two 
skulls are almost typical specimens of the cranial conformation of 
two different races who formerly inhabited the British Isles, the one 
dolichocephalic and the other brachycephalic. As early as 1850, 
Sir Daniel Wilson maintained, as the result of an investigation 
of the craniolos;ical materials then available, that the earliest 
British people were characterised by markedly elongated and 
narrow skulls, to which he gave the name kumbeceplialic , and that 
after a time a brachycephalic people appeared on the scene, who, 
though still practising the simple methods prevalent in the Stone 
Age, were to some extent acquainted with the use of bronze 
( Prehistoric Annals of Scotland , vol. i. p. 253). Through the 
researches of Bateman (Tew Years ’ Diggings , etc.), Thurnam and 
Davis ( Crania Britannica ; Mem. Anthrop. Soc., vols. i. and iii. ), 
Busk ( Journ . Etlmol. Soc. Loudon , 2nd S., vol. vi.), Greenwell and 
Bolleston ( British Barrows ), and others, archaeologists have been 
long conversant with the fact that, as a rule, the crania found in 
the chambered cairns of Wiltshire, Somerset, Gloucester, and some 
