The extent to which abnormal conditions of life are capable of modifying the shape of skulls may be gathered from the comparison of the skull of an Irish hog with that of its ancestor the wild-boar, or even that of a hyæna kept in confinement with that of a wild animal of the same species. (See Osteol. Series, Brit. Mus.)
The British Dolicho-cephali and Brachy-cephali.
The materials for working out the craniology of Europe, in prehistoric times, do not justify any sweeping conclusion as to the distribution of the various races, but those which Dr. Thurnam (op. cit.) has collected in Britain offer a firm basis for such an inquiry. In the numerous long barrows and chambered “gallery graves” of our island, which from the invariable absence of bronze, and the frequent presence of polished stone implements, may be referred to the neolithic age, the crania belong, with scarcely an exception, to the first two of these divisions. In the round barrows, on the other hand, in which bronze articles are found, they belong mainly to the third division, although some are ortho-cephalous. Sometimes, as in the case of Tilshead, the crania in the primary interment, over which the long barrow was raised, are long, while those in the secondary, which have been made after the heaping up of the barrow, are broad.
On evidence of this kind Dr. Thurnam concludes, that Britain was inhabited in the neolithic age by a long-headed people, and that towards its close it was invaded by a bronze-using race, who were dominant during the bronze age. This important conclusion has been verified by nearly every discovery which has been made in this country since its publication. The long skulls graduate into the broad, the oval skulls being the intermediate forms; and this would naturally result from the intermingling of the blood of the two races. There may, however, have been a tendency towards ortho-cephalism in the dolicho-cephali, without any admixture of foreign blood, since absolute unity of form could not be expected.
The skull of the primary interment in the barrow of Winterbourne Stoke is taken by Dr. Thurnam as typical of the dolicho-cephalic class. “The greatest length is 7·3 inches (the glabello-inial 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 dolicho-cephalic 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.”[119]
Dolicho-cephalic skulls in general (and in part ortho-cephalic) are possessed, according to Dr. Thurnam, of the following characters (Vol. iii. p. 69):—“The supraciliary ridges are less strongly marked than in the brachy-cephalic. There is none of the prognathism, exaggerated malar breadth or great width of the nasal openings, which give such an air of savageness and ferocity to the New Caledonians and Caroline Islanders; but the very reverse of all these. They are indeed more orthognathic even than many Europeans, and the facial characters generally are mild, and without exaggerated development in any one direction.” Their faces are oval. The upper jaw is small, and the sockets of the incisors and canine almost vertical. The supra-occipital region is full and rounded, and there is a post-coronal annular depression on the skull, termed by Dr. Gosse “tête annulaire.” The length is mainly due to the development of the occiput, a condition that is termed by M. Broca “dolicho-cephalie occipitale,” as distinguished from the “dolicho-cephalie frontale” of other races. The teeth are worn flat. The bones associated with the skulls of this character show that the stature of the race was short, 5 feet 5 inches being the average height.
In the brachy-cephalic, or broad skulls, on the other hand, the supraciliary ridges are more strongly marked than in the preceding group; the cheek-bones are high and broad, the sockets for the front teeth are oblique, and the mouth projects beyond the vertical dropped from the forehead, presenting the character of prognathism. The face, instead of being oval, is angular or lozenge-shaped. On the back of the head the occipital tuberosity, or probole, is the most prominent feature, and there is also generally an occipital flattening, which may have been caused by the use of an unyielding cradle-board in infancy. The entire maxillary apparatus is so largely developed, that the term “macrognathic,” introduced by Professor Huxley, is particularly applicable to them. The “type mongoloide” of Dr. Pruner-Bey is closely allied to, if not identical with, this form of skull.
The stature of the British brachy-cephali is much greater than that of the dolicho-cephali, the average for the adult male being 5 feet 8·4 inches, according to Dr. Thurnam.
The human remains from the caves and chambered-tombs of Denbighshire belong to the first of these divisions, in the possession of every one of the characters assigned to it by Dr. Thurnam, although the crania belong to the ortho-cephalous portion of the series, that is, tending towards broad-headedness. It may therefore be inferred that they belong to the same race as the neolithic raisers of the long-barrows, a race which we shall presently see to be identical with the ancient Iberians and modern Basques.