bone is affected by exostosis; a tibia by the disease called spina ventosa; and two humeri and one tibia by necrosis. All these diseases are more or less likely to have originated in injuries or violence to the bones. The parietal bone of one skull exhibits a considerable cleft, such as may probably have been produced by a sword or other weapon. Two skulls present a peculiarly thickened and spongy condition from disease. One of these skulls has a thickness of five-eighths of an inch, and the hypertrophy, as exhibited by the prominent condition of the sutures, is very marked.
The crania are generally rather small; their prevailing shape being elongated, and, as viewed laterally, partially pyramidal, the frontal region being decidedly narrow and low, the parietal wide and often much elevated, and the occipital, though likewise small, often protuberant in the centre.[1] Other shapes however exist; thus, one of the crania is very flat and wide in the parietal region, whilst it has both a wider and higher forehead. A few of the skulls approximate more closely to the modern European standard, and are better proportioned and tolerably ample in the frontal region. Probably three out of every four of the crania examined belong to the first described class, as regards form. The cheek prominences are generally of moderate size and the glabellæ. rather full. A measurement, according to the method of Carus,[2] of the three principal regions of the cranium, in twenty-one cases, the results of which I subjoin, gives dimensions which are almost uniformly much below the average standard.[3] On the whole, the examination of these human remains leads to the conclusion that, if they do not belong to a generally rude and imperfectly civilised people, they are at least to be ascribed to the less cultivated portion of some more advanced population.
Scattered amongst the disturbed human remains, and even within a foot of the undisturbed skeletons, were found the bones of some of the lower animals. Amongst these were the bones, including the jaws and teeth, of a small horse, and the fragments of the burr of the horn of a deer. The bones, however, are chiefly hose of the small extinct ox—the Bos longifrons of Owen. They consist of one horn-core, three
- ↑ Representations of several specimens of crania taken with the craniograph described by Dr. Morton (Crania Americana, p. 294), will be given with the sequel of this memoir.
- ↑ See Brit. and For. Medical Review, vol. xviii., p. 385.
- ↑ The table of measurements will be given in a future number of the Journal. The cases in which the dimensions are above the average, are nearly confined to the occipital region, or that of the hind-head.
