correspond closely to the ancient German type found so numerously in an old burying-ground at Bremen, which has an index of 71 or 72. The skulls with this average characteristic index were found in that part of ancient Frisia inhabited by the Chaucians, and as some of the Sussex place-names point to Frisian settlers, the coincidence is suggestive. In reference to the broad skull, Horton-Smith supposes a fusion of race to have taken place between the Saxons of Sussex and some British descendants of the period of the Round Barrow or Bronze Age. He points out, however, an important difference in the height of the skulls—viz., that the height-index of the Round Barrow race, according to Thurnam, is 76, whereas that of the typical Saxon is 70. The settlement in Sussex of some broad-headed people with the long-headed majority, coming from a Continental area where people of both race characters are known to have lived, is probably a better explanation.
The survival of junior inheritance on so many manors in Sussex, and the discovery of differences in the skulls, suggest the inquiry, What evidence is there in Sussex of a typical Saxon race? The custom was foreign to the Continental Saxons. The settlers in Sussex must apparently have been tribal people of more than one race. They may well have been of three races, as perhaps is dimly remembered in their traditional arrival in three ships. The observations which were made half a century ago on the ethnology of the people of this county by Mackintosh are of interest. He says: ‘In Sussex the Saxon type is found in its greatest purity in the area extending from East Grinstead to Hastings.’ It is in this area that place-names ending in -ham, such as Withyham, Etchingham, Northiam, and Bodiam, occur. He says also that ‘in Sussex the majority of the inhabitants would appear to belong to two races—the Saxon, and a race with harder and more angular features.’[1] The
- ↑ Ethnological Society Transactions, i. 214, 215.
