flatness of the forehead—"fronte valde depressâ."[1] Many at least of the so-called Roman skulls which have been exhumed at York are no doubt those of Britons who had adopted the Roman customs, and were buried in the Roman manner. So far as I have seen, these crania have, in general, a rather shortened oval form, though in many cases the forehead is full and moderately wide.[2]
With regard to the form of the head in the ancient Germans, we have, as Dr. Prichard observes, no information in classical writers; and the only record, so far as I am aware, of the cranial development in the remains found in Anglo-Saxon tumuli in this country, is that by Lord Albert Conyngham. This nobleman, in 1841, opened between sixty and seventy barrows at Breach Downs, in Kent, and, in describing their contents, he makes the "passing observation, that the skulls found in these graves are, with one exception, of inferior organisation."[3] This "inferior organisation" of crania from tumuli which are undoubtedly Saxon is important in connexion with the generally inferior frontal development and small size of the skulls from Lamel-hill. The modern Germans, as is well known, have large heads, with the anterior part of the cranium elevated and fully developed; but this, there can be little doubt, is in some degree the result of modern civilisation. On the other hand, too, there seem reasons for thinking that those buried at Lamel-hill were for the most part persons from the lower and less cultivated ranks of society,—of ceorl, rather than of eorl, kind,—in whom the frontal development would probably be less marked.
Another peculiar feature in the human remains from Lamel-hill is the almost uniformly flat and worn condition of the crowns of the teeth. In the Roman-British skulls found at York, the teeth, so far as I have seen, are mostly very perfect, and their crowns not worn down. The same appears to have been the case in the remains from British tumuli examined by Sir R. C. Hoare, who observes: "The singular beauty of the teeth has often attracted our attention; we have seldom found one unsound or one missing, except in
- ↑ Archaeologia, vol. xix., p. 43. In this description of Sir R. C. Hoare, we must regret the absence of more accurate anatomical details.
- ↑ Some of these crania are, no doubt, those of Roman soldiers; as, for example, the skull of Aurelius Superus, centurion of the sixth legion, which was found in an inscribed coffin in the castle-yard at York. See Wellbeloved's Eburacum, p. 110.
- ↑ Archaeologia, vol. xxx., p. 47.
