[1958] Brit. Barrows, p. 683. It appears, however, highly probable that the ‘Iberian’ and North-European dolichocephalic types, to the latter of which the type which I call Celtic belongs, are traceable to the same origin. See Geogr. Journal, xxviii, 1906, pp. 538, 541.
[1959] Partly because during the latter part of the period the custom of cremation was prevalent in South-Eastern Britain. See p. 286, supra.
A considerable number of skeletons has been discovered in the so-called ‘Danes’ Graves’ in the parish of Driffield, Yorkshire, which undoubtedly belong to the Early Iron Age, and were earlier than the time of Agricola (Proc. Soc. Ant., 2nd ser., xx, 1904-5, p. 257), by Dr. Thurnam (Archaeol. Journal, xxii, 1865, pp. 109 n. 8, 264), Canon Greenwell (ib., pp. 108-11, 264), and Mr. J. R. Mortimer (Proc. Soc. Ant., 2nd ser., xvii, 1897-9, pp. 119-28). The cephalic indices of those male skulls which were found by Thurnam and Canon Greenwell are 75, 76, 70, 75, and 71: the mean index of those in the collection of Mr. Mortimer, who does not give the individual measurements, is 75.5; and the indices of fourteen, which have lately been measured by Dr. Wright (Journ. Anthr. Inst., xxxiii, 1903, pp. 67, 70-1), and which, for aught that I know, may have included the others, ranges from 68 to 79. Neither Thurnam, nor Canon Greenwell, nor Mr. Mortimer says anything about stature; but the average height of the men whose bones Dr. Wright measured would only have been 5 ft. 3½ in. This is so low as to suggest that they were not Celts; and the question of their origin has caused much discussion. The remains of a chariot were found in one of the graves which Mr. Mortimer opened; but chariots may of course have been used by non-Celtic Britons. According to Thurnam, the skulls ‘appear to be distinguished from the ... long-barrow type’, and might pass for those of modern inhabitants of Scandinavia; but the pottery found in the graves by Canon Greenwell was not only unlike any which he had discovered in other parts of Yorkshire, but also different from Scandinavian or Anglo-Saxon ware. Moreover, he describes the mode of interment as ‘unlike any which has been found in Denmark, Norway, or Sweden’. Therefore I cannot agree with Dr. Wright, who thinks that the people in question came from Scandinavia. All that is certain is that, like most of our Late Celtic skeletons, they did not belong to the familiar tall Celtic type.
In Scorborough Park, near Beverley, there is a group of small mounds, similar to the ‘Danes’ Graves’. Mr. Mortimer opened six of them in 1895, and found two skulls ‘of a decidedly long type’.
Fourteen skulls at least have been found in and just outside the Glastonbury marsh-village (Report of ... the Brit. Association, 1895, p. 519; 1896, p. 658; 1898 [1900], p. 695; 1899 [1901], p. 594; Proc. Somerset. Archaeol. and Nat. Hist. Soc., l, 1904, p. 80; li, 1905, pp. 88, 99-100); but no detailed description of them has yet been published, though Prof. Boyd Dawkins (Vict. Hist. of ... Somerset, i, 200) affirms that they ‘belong to the small dark Iberic inhabitants’, and argues that as some of them belonged to men who had been decapitated, they do not represent inhabitants of the village, but their enemies. Some, however, belonged to young children, and were found in the hut-circles. There is the same dearth of information about skeletons which have been found near Birdlip, on the Cotswold Hills (Trans. Bristol and Gloster Archaeol. Soc., v, 1880-1, pp. 137-41), and in the parish of St. Keverne, Cornwall (Archaeol. Journal, xxx, 1873, pp. 267-72).
In the only interment of the Early Iron Age that has yet been discovered in Scotland—a cist on the estate of Moredun in Midlothian (Proc. Soc. Ant. Scot., xxxviii, 1904, pp. 427-38)—which was probably not earlier than the second century of our era (ib., p. 438), two skeletons, apparently of females, were found. It was only possible to calculate the stature of one, which, estimated from the femur alone, by what method I do not know, was about 5 ft. 5½ in. This, for a woman, would be comparatively tall. The cephalic index was 75; and, according to Dr. T. H. Bryce, who measured the skull (ib., pp. 439-45), ‘all the measurements and the indices deduced from them are such as might belong to a [neolithic] skull from the chambered cairns,’ but ‘the general characters are markedly different. It resembles in general proportions certain of the skulls from the “Danes’ Graves” ... described by Dr. W. Wright ... but in form it does not fall in with any of his types ... the skull shows rather closer affinities with the modern than with any ancient type,’ &c. Has Dr. Bryce seen any of the skulls from the Gallic tumuli of the Early Iron Age?
For further information about skeletons of this period see Crania Britannica, ii, pl. 6 and 7, pp. 2, 7 (Arras), pl. 43, p. 3 (Roundway Hill); Proc. Soc. Ant., 2nd ser., iv, 1867-70, pp. 275-6 (Grimthorpe); Brit. Barrows, p. 683; Archaeologia, lii, 1890, pp. 325-6; and Guide to the Ant. of the Early Iron Age (Brit. Museum), pp. 124-5, 130. The Arras and Grimthorpe specimens at least were probably Brythonic.
[1960] Rev. d’anthr., ii, 1873, pp. 605, 607, 611. Unhappily Broca does not give the indices of all the skulls, but only the average.
[1961] Bull. du Muséum d’hist. nat., &c., 1902, p. 178.
[1962] L’Anthr., xvii, 1906, pp. 7, 10, 16-7, 25. See also Crania Ethnica, p. 498; Scottish Review, xxi, 1893, p. 171; A. Bertrand and S. Reinach, Les Celtes, &c., pp. 122-34; Rev. mensuelle de l’École d’anthr., vii, 1897, pp. 65-87; Bull. et mém. de la Soc. d’anthr., ve sér., ii, 1901, pp. 721-2; and Archiv für Anthr., xxviii, 1902, pp. 185-6.