Page:Early Man in Britain and His Place in the Tertiary Period.djvu/339

] of the back of the head, termed by Dr. Broca "dolichocephalie occipitale," as distinguished from the "dolichocephalie frontale" of other races. The outline of the face was oval, the supraciliary ridges being less strongly marked, and the cheek-bones much less developed than in the round skulls, the upper and lower jaws small, and the lower part of the face not projecting beyond a vertical line dropped from the forehead (

races are continually coming into contact, and where life is removed farthest from its natural and simple surroundings. But it does not apply to people living under the conditions of those described in this chapter, nor does it apply to simple communities at the present time. The same habits of life, common to a tribe or a race of rude civilisation, coupled with comparative purity of blood, certainly produced a greater uniformity in the shape of the head, than that which we observe among ourselves. It seems, therefore, to me little less than idle to say that the unity of type running through the whole of these Neolithic skulls is of no significance, because in certain hatters' shops in Manchester, London, or Vienna, the outline of the heads is so variable. In these cases the difference is brought about by abnormal conditions of life, and the mixture of different races through commerce.

For practical purposes it is much more convenient to treat the long and oval skulls under the same heading. As an example of it we may take the description of the skull from the primary interment in the barrow of winterbourne Stoke, described by Dr. Thurnam (Mem. Anthrop. Soc. i. 44) as follows:—"The greatest length is 7⋅3 inches (the glabelloinial diameter 7⋅1 inches), the greatest breadth is 5⋅5 inches, being in the proportion of 75 to the length taken as 100. The forehead is narrow and receding, and moderately high in the coronal region, behind which is a trace of transverse depression. The parietal tubers are somewhat full, and add materially to the breadth of this otherwise narrow skull. The posterior borders of the parietals are prolonged backwards, to join a complex chain of Wormian bones in the line of the lambdoid suture. The superior scale of the occiput is full, rounded, and prominent; the inion more pronounced than usual in this class of dolichocephalic skulls. The superciliaries are well marked, the orbits rather small and long, the nasals prominent, the facial bones short and small, the molars flat and almost vertical, the alveolars short but rather projecting. The mandible is comparatively small but angular, the chin square, narrow, and prominent."