ANCIENT BRITISH SKULL.
FROM A BAEROW AT CODPORD, WILTSHIRE.
(REGION OR THE BELGIE, TEMP. PTOLEM^I, A.D. 120.)
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Cranium from Barrom at Codford.—Quarter-size.
THIS example of an ancient British skuU, for wMoh we are indebted to the kindness of Mr J
r . Aierman, Secretary of the Society of Antiquaries of London, and to the great interest he has
always taken m the "Craoiia Britannica," an interest we hare before had occasion to acknowledge,
IS well deserving of attentive study, although the history of its disinterment is sadlv
defective. Indeed, we beHeve the only fact which can be ascertained regarding its discovery is'
that It was found about the year 1852, by some labourers engaged in removing a Barrow in thè
parish of Codford, near Heytesbui-y, in South Wiltshii-e ; - a region which it is weU known has
been thickly strewed with such memorials of the British race, and celebrated by the antiquarian
investigations of Sii- R. C. Hoare.
It is a cranium of rather agreeable aspect, in a good state of preservation, owing doubtless
to the mipervious chalky soil in which it has been imbedded. There are some appearances
about It which would lead us to infer that the body had probably been interred in the flexed
position, as was usual in eaxly British Barrows. Although the coronal, sagittal, and a great
pai-t of the lambdoidal sutures are almost whoUy effaced, the presence of aU the teeth when disinterred,
and their excellent condition, point to the conclusion that it has belonged to a person
- a man without doubt-who had not passed the meridian of life-of not more than forty years
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