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DESCRIPTIONS OF CRANIA.
Norton is separated from New Maltón by the river Derwent. At both places there has
been a Roman camp, and at both Roman antiquities have been frequently found ; occasionally
those of an earlier, British, and likewise of a later, Anglo-Saxon, period. On this eastern bank of
the Derwent there is also a Sutton close by. Maltón has produced two Roman inscriptions :
one, dug up in 1753, is given in Gough's Additions to Camden's " Britannia" *, and is considered
to refer to one of the Equités Singulares, "part of the emperor's body-guard, probably of
the emperor Severus, and this their appropriate burying-place." This inscription likewise appears
in Professor Phillips's valuable Yorkshire volume, which has the charm of great instruction
and very varied interest alsot; the otlier is flgiu-ed from a di-awing of Mr. Roach Smith, in
Mr. Wright's "The Celt, the Roman, and the Saxon J:." In these works the probable readings
are given.
The former author makes the following remarks upon Maltón, in the British age. " The
country all round Maltón is shown to have been in early times the most peopled part of Yorkshire,
and so it remained tUl a comparatively late period. The range of villages which cling to
the foot of the Wolds, from the Humber, round by Maltón to Hunmanby and Piley, is remarkable
; a similar crowd of large villages runs from Scarborough by Hehnsley and Thirsk to th?
north of the Tees ; and ù-om many circumstances there is reason to conclude these lines to have
been occupied by settlements in the earliest times. Along them flowed the finest springs ;
above them were open pastures for sheep, the bustard, the dotterel and other birds, and below
in boundless forests roamed red deer and the wild boar ; herons and wild fowl frequented the
swamps ; wolves, foxes, martens, and other animals of some value for skins, afforded occupation
to the arrow, spear, pit or net ; while, to complete the happiness of savage life, the roving pirates
or merchants of the Baltic and the Elbe might land at the 'Uchel' (Ocelum Promontorium,
Plamborough), the 'Dun' (Dunsley, near Whitby), or the 'Aberach' (Eburacum, York), the
coloui-ed glass and amber, which made them amulets and ornaments§."
Further, in reference to the Roman occupation there, Mr. Phillips says :—" Maltón was
certainly an important Roman station. The coins, m-ns, inscriptions, graves, baths, &c., suflciently
attest this fact. Founded, as most of the Roman stations were, in proximity to older
British towns, we see here, as so often in Yorkshü-e, a double town—Old and New Maltón on one
side of the river, and Norton on the other. Roads of Roman use at least, lead westward by
several villages with the sufiix of 'street' to Yearsley Camp and Isurium; southward to
Eburacum, eastward by Wharram le Street to the great road to Prsetorium (Bridlington).
Another route (Wade's Causeway) conducted northward to Dunum Sinus, near Whitby ; and we
may be confident a fifth led to the well-havened bay—the KÍXTTOC. eiXi^ei-oc-of Ptolemy. Round
Maltón in several directions are important earthworks, probably not all of British construction.
What was the name of this great station ? Alas ! lost with the Commentaries, if such ever
existed, of Agricola—Hadrian—Severus ! Maltón was not Camulodunum—that was a southern
colonia : it could not be Derventio, as the late Dr. Young supposes, unless that was XVII.
instead of VII. millia passuum from York ||."
The name Camulodunum has been somewhat confusedly appropriated to Maltón ; certainly
not that of the " southern colonia," but as the Camunlodunum of Ptolemy, which has been
regarded to be the same with the Cambodunum of Antonine. The latter the learned Mr. Hunter
and other antiquaries have referred to the West Ridingl^.
* 2nd Ed. vol. iii. p. 326.
§ P. 226.
t The Rivers, Mountains and Sea-Coast of Yorlishire, 1S53, p. 90.
II Ibid. p. 89.
t 1S52, p. i!i7.
H Ibid. p. 9; .
(2)
ANCIENT BRITISH—MALTON {DELGOriTIA?).
We will now proceed to describe the skull, for which we are indebted to Mr. Joseph
Mayer, E.S.A. It has belonged to a man well advanced in lifa-: probably 60 years of age or
more. The first peculiarity which is noticed is the large massive face, not equally developed in
all parts, but mainly below the orbits. There is great breadth in the lower jaw, and the
alveolar arch of the upper is correspondently wide. But the nasal bones are very short, narrow,
abruptly raised, twisted to the left side and ungraceful. A prominent superciliary ridge
terminates the forehead below; above it is narrow, receding and deficient in elevation.
Ascending to the coronal region, we find it lofty about the fore-part of the sagittal suture, and
distinctly so in the middle of this sutme, whence the calvarium descends in an arch to the
occiput, which is not remarkable for prominence. Its protuberance and superior ridge are
strongly marked. The greatest width of the calvarium is a little behind the auditory foramen,
and about an inch above the base of the mastoids. When viewed vertically, it is seen to present
an unusuaUy regular oval form, from the great correspondence in outline of its anterior and
posterior extremities, the latter being slightly the narrower of the two. The auditory aperture
is a trifle in advance of the middle of the calvarium.
^ This is a brachycephalic cranium, most peculiar for its elevation about the middle of the
sagittal suture, with an absence of the parieto-occipital flatness seen in many of the British
series. It presents one if not two, indications of disease. The fii-st is a depression, without any
abrasion of the surface of the bone, in the outer part of the superciUary arch over the left orbit,
which descends into the external orbitary process of the frontal. It is not improbable that thil
mark is one of the sequences of a morbid process in early life. In the upper posterior angle of
the right parietal, about an inch fi-om the junction of the sagittal and lambdoidal sutures, an
effect of more recent disease, most likely the concomitant if not the immediate cause of delth,
is seen. This is an oval apertui-e in the surface of the bone, about three-quarters of an inch
long, and half an inch wide; the seat of a caries wluch has destroyed the outer table whoUy
and a portion of the inner, which it has penetrated in the centre of the depression. There is no
sign of this loss of bony tissue being the result of external injury. The other depression leads
to the inference that both are rather the effects of constitutional disease.
^ This cranium derived from the cemetery of a Roman station, from a body interred in a grave
which presented Christian orientation, placed m immediate proximity to others in the same
position, and found with a Roman bronze fibula on the breast—therefore, discovered under all
ch-cumstances which seem to justify its appropriation to a Roman—are we to regard it as of
Roman origin? Craniology steps in to supply data for the answer of this question, which
without its aid, would not admit of a correct interpretation. The skuU does not present, certainly
in any marked degree, those characters which are distinctive of the Roman series; but it strongly
exhibits some of those we have authenticated as the indicia of the ancient British race It''is
not broad and square in the fore-part of the calvarium, neither has it, especially in the upper
region, the Roman face. On the contrary, it has the air- of a brachycephalic cranium, an elevated
rather acummate vertical region, a great depth in the perpendicular descending from this point
to the mastoid, and an uprightness in the outline of the hind-head-aU which are British
characters, and agree in this respect with those facial features by which it is distinguished We
beheve, therefore, that these evidences are adequate to justify the very probable conclusion that
It IS, If of mixed origin, mainly British. It is the skull of a Roman citizen, the inhabitant of a
Roman station, who, wliilst he was not reduced to the condition of a slave, but probably had a
37-