U 1 p
h i
230 CRANIA BRITANNICA. [CHAP. IX.
find the limits of races so sharply defined in the manner which has been presumed. That a
brachycephalic race should in any country suddenly cease and be followed, as suddenly, by a
different and dohchocephalic race is at variance with experience. The tendency always is for
races to blend into each other, although they are controlled in this respect by natural laws.
In the estimation of the unusual dolichocephalism of some crania from the long and chambered
barrows, the prevalence of synostotic skulls among them, which has just been named,
must further arrest oiu^ attention. The whole subject of synostoses and their great influence in
deforming the skuIL has been investigated by Prof. Sommerring, Virchow, Lucae, and Welcker with
the utmost ability and scientific accuracy *. This has been shown to be of so much moment in
the correct appreciation of skuH forms, that, wherever it exists, it cannot be left out of sight without
incurring serious errors. The direct tendency of synostosis, or the ossification of the sutures of
the calvarium at an early period of existence, whereby they become prematurely obKterated, is
to change its natural shape, by preventing the further development of the brain in a direction
transverse to the sutui-es closed, and forcing it to extend in another compensatory direction,
usually at right angles to the former. "When the sutures surrounding the alisphenoid, or the
outer limits of the coronal suture are obliterated, the growth of the calvarium laterally is
stopped, and the brain is constrained to expand longitudinally backwards, if the sutures in the
The result may be stated in a few words to have been the discovery
of six skeletons, all apparently brachycephalic, at a
depth of two feet, at the east end^ i. e. in that part which
Sir R. C. Hoare and his able aiitiqnarian fellow labourer, Mr.
Cunnington, describe as the position for the chief deposit. Sir
Richard's words in difPerent places are:—"Finding nothing,
Mr. Cunnington was induced to consider it as a long barrow,
and therefore commenced another section near the eastern
extremity" (vol. i. p. 102). " In making as usual our section
at the broad end, where experience has taught us the sepulchral
deposit was generally made" (vol. i. p. 206). " In long
barrows we have almost invariably foimd the interments deposited
at the east and broadest end" (vol. i. p. 242). On extending
the excavations to the base of the Winterbourn
Stoke long barrow. Dr. Thurnam, at a depth of nine feet, met
with " the primary interment." The cranium of the skeleton
was dolichocephahc; but at the same time it was a synostotic
abnormal skull. An account of the opening of this barrow will
be inserted in the 1st vol. of the Memoirs of the Anthropological
Society of London.
In other districts in which stone abounds the long barrows,
if regarded as the work of any one distinct people, appear
to have undergone a singular transmutation. In Somersetshire
and Gloucestershire barrows of great length are met with;
and on opening them they are found to resemble New Grange,
in containing a long covered gallery having recesses for sepulchral
deposits on each side, all constructed of slabs of stone
placed upright. These barrows Sir R. C. Hoare called " Stone
Barrows." This antiquary remarked a peculiarity in certain
skulls derived from long barrows and stone barrows; but it did
not consist in their dolichocephalism ; on the contrary it was
solely confined to their very low foreheads, " fronte valde depressa."
In one instance, when opening his No. 173, a long
barrow in the plain of Stonehenge, he tells us, "one of the
persons here interred seemed to have had no forehead, the
sockets of the eyes appearing to have been on the top of his
head, and the final termination of the vertehr<B turned up so
much that we almost fancied we had found the remains of one
of Lord Monboddo's animals." {lb. vol. i. p. 206.) This
skull has belonged to the particular category in which the calvarium
now rendered so famous, from the Neanderthal Cavern,
may be placed. Of the latter very diverse and erratic views
have been taken. It has been regarded to give valid support to
the visionary hypothesis of transmutation. The true cause
of its peculiar form arises from the premature ossification of its
sutures; and it is thus reduced to a mere synostotic calvarium.
The two crania Sir Richard met with in the long barrow at
"Wellow (Stoney Littleton) were also distinguished by their
depressed foreheads, not their length. (Archseologia, vol. xix.
pp. 47,48, supra ; p. 14, and PI. 5. p. (5).) As subsequent observers
have not met with skulls of this particular form in these
barrows, the inference presses itself on our notice, that these
barrows, like others, contain crania of diversified configuration,
some of which are synostotic.
It may be right here to mention that our colleague dissents
from this part of the writer's views. Dr. Thurnam considers
that the results of his researches in various long and chambered
barrows of the south-west of England are in favour of the existence
of two distinct races in ancient Britain—the one dolichocephalous,
connected especially with the stone-period and
with long barrows, the other brachycephalous, connected
rather with the bronze-period and with circular barrows. See
' Memoirs of the Anthropological Society,' vol. i.
* Rudolf Virchow, ' Ueber den Cretinismus, namentlich in
Franken, und über pathologische Schädelformen,' 185].
•Gesammelte Abhandlungen,' 1856, vol. ii. p. 891. J. C. G.
Lucae, 'Zur Architectur des Menschenschädels,' 1857,vol. i.,
"Schiidelabnormer Form." HermannWelcker, 'UeberWachsthum
und Bau des menschl. Schädels,' i, Th. 1862; 'Ueber
zwei seltnere Difformitiiten des menschl. Schädels,' 1863.
CHAP. IX.] CONCLUSION. 231
occipital region still continue open and thus favour this elongation. By turning to the Plates of
the extremely dolichocephalic skulls in this work, it wiU be found that they present some of these
conditions. In that from the tumnlus at Uley, Plate 5, the spheno-frontal, spheno-parietal on the
right side, and the outer portions of the coronal sutures are all obliterated, whilst the sagittal and
lambdoidal are partly so. That this obliteration was prematm-e receives confirmation in the fact
of the " central ridge to be traced along the median line of the frontal bone," such oarince often
accompanying early synostoses. The effect of this early closure of sutures has been to constrain
the cerebrum to expand itself posteriorly. In the cranium from the long tumulus near Littleton
Drew, PI. 24, almost exactly the same condition of the sutures prevails, and the result is similar
to that in the Uley example. In the Long Lowe skuU, PI. 33, like appearances present themselves,
only in a somewhat less degree. The spheno-frontal sutures and the outer extremities of
the coronal are entirely ossified, whilst the lambdoidal is wholly free*. In the West ICennet skull,
PI. 50, there is " a prominent ridge or carina in the line of the sagittal suture, which is far advanced
towards obliteration; " and it is weU known that ossification of this suture, the primary
feature of scaphocephalism, has the most eflicient influence in producing narrowness of the entire
calvarium, and hence greater proportional longitudinal diameter. The ratio of its transverse
diameter is -67, less than that of any other skuU deKneated. In the skull from the Rodmarton
long barrow, Plate 59, " externally the great sutures are tolerably distinct, though, with the
exception of the squamous, they appear to be obliterated internally. Of the fronto-sphenoid, the
lower parts of the coronal, and the left occipito-mastoid, there is scarcely a trace within or
without"!. This is a description which pomts distinctly to the influence of synostosis in narrowing
the intertemporal and frontal regions, and in the elongation of the calvarium. This
extraordinary prevalence of synostoses in the crania obtained from the long barrows (for we have
not thought it necessary in this place further to allude to the numerous examples of our Table II.
marked with the ^signj indicative of this condition) cannot, anymore than the pathological
appearances in these bones, be taken for a race-character. It is simply an abnormal condition,
which occurs most probably among aU races; whether in some more frequently than others.
Society. He has also treated it in a more compendious manner,
in a memoir treating of the various kinds of deformation to
which the calvarium is liable, read before the Skandinaviska
Naturforskara-Sallskapet, at Stockholm, 1863, which will appear
in the Forhandlingar of the Meeting.
Perhaps no greater proof of the importance of the changes
produced by synostosis in craniology could be adduced than
the case of the famous Neanderthal skull, which has attracted
the attention of so many scientific men, and afforded the basis
for such numerous speculations. This imperfect calvarium, of
so singular a form that it has been supposed to aiford the connecting
link in the transmutation of anthropomorphous apes
into the lowest race of men, is nothing more or less than a
fragment of a synostotic skull—it is true, an example of synostotic
deformation which is very unusual. This peculiar
synostosis is greatly illustrated by a calvarium closely resembling
that of the Neanderthal cave, in the collection of
the writer. No. 1029. The solution of this portion of the
Neanderthal j)roblem is given in a paper entitled: "The
Neanderthal Skull: its peculiar conformation explained anatomically."
By J. Barnard Davis, M.D., 1864.
* The constantly recurring depression running across the
calvarium immediately behind the coronal suture, in these
skulls, is another of the results of the obliteration of the sutures
situated in the temporal region. The synostosis of the
cranial bones, in this spot, has the effect of contracting the
whole of the pre-temporal and pre-parietal circumference of
the calvarium, in a similar manner to the operation of a constricting
bandage. So that the tête annulaire of Gosse, or
sattelf örmige Einschniinmg of A^irchow, is not always the consequence
of artificial compression, as has been supposed. The
subject of this contraction has been copiously commented upon
in the Description of the Winterbourne Monkton skull, Plate 58,
p. (3). It is a frequent phenomenon in these synostotic
crania, and premature ossification of the sutures is its true
cause.
t The premature obliteration of the sutures is of the utmost
importance in craniology. The writer has given a tolerably
full notice of the whole subject of synostosis, in a memoir presented
to the Dutch Society of Sciences at Haarlem, 1863, in
which he has dwelt chiefly ujion examples observed among
aboriginal races. This memoir will be printed, wilh illustrations
of aboriginal synostotic skulls, in the Transactions of the
2 H 2