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DESCRIPTIONS OE CRANIA.
occipital deformation, " tête déprimée par derrière" of Gosse, does not appear to have been
designedly produced by these American tribes, but to be " only an exaggeration of the natural
form, caused by the pressure of the cradle-board in use among them *." The Ancient Britons
were to a great extent a nomadic people, and, probably enough, used a soKd and a flat cradle, in
which their infants might be secured on the back, and safely transported fi-om place to place. In
support of this view, it is to be observed that the flattening and truncation of the occiput in our
Purbeek skuU are not symmetrical, the left side of this bone and the adjoining border of the
parietal being much more prominent than the right ; whilst the right side of the frontal is
somewhat fuller than the left. The child appears to have been laid with the head habitually
inclining to the right. The want of symmetry cannot be posthumous, as any amount of pressui-e
in the grave, capable of producing it, must at this early age have resulted in the separation
of the cranial bones at their sutui-es. Altogether the conclusion, that some of our British crania
may owe their short longitudinal diameter, at least in part, to "the mode of nurture in
infancyt," derives much confirmation from this youthfiil specimen from Purbeek.
That the occipital flattening in these skulls has dated from the earliest period of life, the
writer has evidence in the calvarium of a eliild of from three to fom- years, obtained in 1861, by
the Rev. W. C. Lukis, from an ancient British barrow at CoUingbourn, WHts. The flattening of
the occiput in this infantile specimen affects chiefly the lower part of this bone, and, though not
so pronounced as in the Purbeek skull, is still very marked. The parietal tubers axe excessively
prominent : the longitudinal diameter measures 6'3, the greatest transverse 5-1, the circumference
18-1 inches. Inspection, however, suflices to show that the brachycephalic type is
strictly innate, and that the actual form is only in a secondary degree due to the flattening of
the occiput.
(J. T.)
Blumenbach's skull, " Veteris Peruani " tab. Ixv. is of very
similar form. Professor Owen repeatedly observes on a slight
want of symmetry, such as exists in this Purbeek skull, in the
form of the flattened occiput of modem Peruvian crania.—
Osteological Catalogue of the Koyal College of Surgeons, vol. ii.
pp. 860, 880.
* Morton, in Dr. Meigs's "Catalogue of Human Crania in
Acad, of Nat. Sciences," Philadelphia, 1857, pp. 70, 71. Distortions
of the occiput from this cause have not been confined
to the tribes of America and Polynesia. Vesalius, the great anatomist
of the 1 Oth century, states that the Germans produced
a Uke effect by similar means. " Germani vero compresso plerumque
occipite et lato capite spectantur, quod puerì in cunis
dorso semper incumbunt, ac manibus fere citra fasciarom usum,
cunarum lateribus utrinque alligantur."—Lib. i. c. 5. § 25.
t Professor Daniel Wilson, in Canadian Journal, 1857,
N. S. voi. ii. p. 426. The writer is confirmed in his conclusions
on this subject by the observations of his colleague, Mr.
J . Barnard Davis, Plate 23, p. 3. Dr. Gosse {op. eit. 1855,
p. 74) had already attributed the flattening of the occiput in
the Ancient Caledonians to the use of a flat and unyielding
cradle.
Vertical and curved Strata of Chalk, at Ballard Head.
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