Page:Origin of the Anglo-Saxon Race.djvu/46

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
32
Origin of the Anglo-Saxon Race.

in the invasion and settlement of England is probable from many circumstances, and, among others, the minor variations in the skulls found in Anglo-Saxon graves corresponding to the minor variations found to exist also among the skulls discovered at Bremen. Of these latter Beddoe says: ‘There are small differences which may have been tribal.’[1] The same author remarks also of these Bremen skulls, that there are differences in the degree of development of the superciliary ridges which may have been more tribal than individual.[2]

Of 100 skulls of the Anglo—Saxon period actually found in England, and whose dimensions were tabulated by Beddoe, the following variations were found, the percentage of the breadth in comparison with the length being expressed by the indices:[3]

Indices Number of
Skulls.
65-66 .. .. .. ..   1
67-68 .. .. .. ..   1
69-70 .. .. .. ..   8
71-72 .. .. .. ..  14
73-74 .. .. .. ..  33
75-76 .. .. .. ..  21
77-78 .. .. .. ..  14
79-80 .. .. .. ..   6
81-82 .. .. .. ..   2
100

From this table it will be seen that 8 of the 100 have a breadth very nearly or quite equal to four-fifths of their 1ength—i.e., they are the remains of people of a different race from the typical Anglo-Saxon.

The typical Saxon skull is believed to have been similar to that known as the ‘grave-row’ skull on the Continent, from the manner in which the bones were found laid in rows. Thcse occur numerously in Saxon burial-places in

  1. Beddoe, J., ‘Races of Britain,’ 46.
  2. Ibid.
  3. Haddon, A, C., loc. cit., 85.