Page:Christian Greece and Living Greek.djvu/300

 278 CHRISTIAN GREECE AND LIVING GREEK. identified as to their origin, that is, the locality where they were found, the surroundings, the grave, the arms, the pottery, the tools, the orna- ments — in fact, all that would aid in giving infor- mation, nay, conclusive evidence, as to the period to which the skulls or the skeletons belonged. Here are — an important part of the collection — forty skulls of the prehistoric, of the Mykense period — that is, about the fifteenth century be- fore Christ. Let us see what this number of skulls of this early period signifies. Nine years ago — that is, before this collection was begun — there was not a single Greek skull of this period known to science. Thus the question in regard to the two principal peoples of the most ancient Greece — the Pelasges and the Greeks proper — the question of their being brachycephalous or dolichocephalous, and in what proportion the one or the other form predominated, could by no means be decided. Now, by means of this rich material which presents itself here, it may be said positively and surely : Some of the prehis- toric Greeks were mesaticephalous ; others were dolichocephalous. Until the year 1884 there were, in the differ- ent collections of Europe, about ninety ancient skulls known, of which twenty-nine belonged to