Page:Natural History Review (1861).djvu/176

164 locality skulls of an entirely different form, of considerable length, flat, and compressed, with a projecting occiput, and small facial development.

One cranium of this kind, from the Danish Island Työr, presents on the occiput a bony spine; the thigh-bones belonging to the same subject, 20 inches long, indicate a height of 6 feet 3 inches. Prichard has figured a round skull, with prominent supraorbital ridges, in the museum of the College of Surgeons, as a Cimbric cranium. A skull found in an ancient grave at Nogent les Vierges, Oise, exhibits, as does a similar cranium from Auduze, an elongated form, the forehead depressed towards the temples, strong supraorbital ridges, and worn teeth. The ancient British brachycephalic skull from Ballidon Moor, described by Davis, has large frontal sinuses, prominent supraorbital ridges, and well-developed muscular impressions on the facial bones. The prominence of the orbital border is less considerable in the ancient British skull, which is also brachycephalic, described by Retzius. An ancient rounded Irish skull also exhibits large supraorbital ridges projecting in front of the frontal bone, and meeting in the middle, and a depressed forehead.

As, in speaking of the aboriginal inhabitants of Scandinavia, Nilsson describes a more ancient brachycephalic, and a more recent dolichocephalic type of cranial conformation, from the circumstance that the long oval skulls of the one type have been found in graves containing metallic implements, whilst the others have occurred in ancient burial-places, together with implements of stone and bone, so D. Wilson asserts the existence of two races in Scotland antecedent to the Celts; the Fifeshire skull described by him as elongated and narrow, corresponding with the dolichocephalic Scandinavian type, whilst that from Montrose is round, with a better frontal development, both exhibiting large frontal sinuses. The skulls, two of which were sent to me by the kindness of Dr. Veiel, disinterred some years since in Cannstadt, near the Uffkirche, and which were found in Germanic graves, together with earthenware vessels, weapons, and ornaments, none of which articles presented any trace of Roman art, are orthognathic, of an elongated form, with a much projecting occiput, large orbits, particularly from above downwards, the supraorbital ridges prominent, and the root of the nose hollowed. Five ancient Germanic skulls, from Selsen, preserved in the Romano-Teutonic Museum at Mayence, two of which are prognathic, present similar prominent supraorbital ridges; as is the case also with a very ancient cranium in the same collection, found at Oberingelheim, deep in the earth, and unaccompanied by any weapons; and also with a skull of Germanic origin,