Notes on the Fenland; with A Description of the Shippea Man

by Thomas McKenny Hughes

This skull is unique among the few that I have obtained from the Fens. Dr Duckworth has described[9] most of these, and I subjoin a description of the Shippea man by Professor Alexander Macalister.

Description of the Shippea Man by Prof. A. Macalister.

"The calvaria is large, dark coloured and much broken. The base, facial bones and part of the left brow ridge and glabella are gone. The sutures are coarsely toothed and visible superficially although ankylosis has set in in the inner face. The bone is fairly thick (8·10 mm.), and on the inner face the pacchionian pits are large and deep on each side of the middle line especially in the bregmatic part of the frontal and the post-bregmatic part of the parietals. The superior longitudinal groove is deep but narrow, and, as far as the broken condition allows definite tracing, the cerebral convolution impressions are of the typical pattern.

Fig. 7.

"The striking feature is the prominent brow ridge due to the large frontal sinus. The glabella was probably prominent and the margins on each side are large and rough and extend outwards to the supraorbital notches. The outer part of the supraorbital margin and the processus jugalis are thick, coarse and prominent (Fig. 7).

"In norma verticalis the skull is ovoid-pentagonoid euryme-topic with conspicuous rounded parietal eminences, slight flattening at the obelion and a convex planum interparietale below it (Fig. 8).

Fig. 8.

"In norma lateralis the brow ridges are conspicuous; above them is the sulcus transversus from which the frontal ascends with a fairly uniform curve to the bregma. The frontal sagittal arc above the ophryon measures 112 mm. and its chord 116. Behind the bregma the parietals along the front half of the sagittal suture have a fairly flat outline to the medio-parietal region, behind which the flattened obelion is continued downwards with a uniform slope to the middle of the planum interparietale whence it probably descended by a much steeper curve to the inion, which is lost. The parietal sagittal arc, including the region where there was probably a supra-lambdoid ossicle, was about 140 mm. and its chord 121 but the curve is not uniform.