176 
THE ANTIQUITY OF MAN 
below the modern average, even for women. I have 
allowed 125 mm, for the length of the parietal bones 
measured along the vault of the skull — a very ample 
allowance. The lambda, at the hinder end of the sagittal 
suture between the parietal bones (see fig. 61), has been 
placed 10 mm. in front of the occipital projection or pole 
of the skull. The length of the skull is thus represented 
as 183 mm. ; it could be made shorter, not longer. The 
vault is remarkably flat on the top — a character in which 
BURY ST EDMUNDS CBOMAGNON (VERTEX) 
Fig. 62. — The Bury St Edmunds fragment viewed from above. The upper 
aspect of a Cromagnon skull is placed beside it for comparison. 
the Bury St Edmunds fragment resembles Neanderthal 
skulls. It may be suspected that the pressure of the 
earth, in which the fragment lay, has produced a 
posthumous flattening, but such an explanation is im- 
probable when the symmetrical character of the coronal 
suture, between the frontal bone and the parietals, is 
observed. From the width and flattening of the vault, 
one infers that the original transverse diameter of the 
skull could not have been less than 148 mm., the width 
being thus 80 per cent, or 81 per cent, of the length. 
Such a skull would be classed as brachycephalic, but it is 
