body and the rim, but the one glides into the other by a gradual curve. The brim is of slight elevation and in the Wilts examples is curved outwards at the lip. The body instead of being globular, is oval. More attention seems paid to the fabric than to decoration. The walls are thinner than in any other variety of British fictile vessels, and as they have been well fired, the colour is red, almost as bright as that of Samian ware."

The Upavon cup is of the same type as that from Barrow 161 (Hoare) at Normanton, No. 147 Stourhead Catalogue, and that from the barrow on Roundway Hill which was accompanied by the large copper dagger (Catalogue of Antiq. Pt. II. X. 50, Plate VIII., 4,) both of which are in the Society's Museum. It is therefore probable that the Upavon example belongs, as the others do, to an early date in the Bronze Age. It is of excellent hard well-burnt ware, red on the outside, and black in the interior substance of the ware. It is smoothed on the outside surface, but is not visibly polished as the Roundway Cup is. It has very much the appearance presented by the ware of a modern flower pot. The whole surface, with the exception of 1 inch at the base which is plain, is covered by the ornament so often found on this type of drinking cup, viz., a series of roughly parallel horizontal dotted lines at very short intervals. These are carelessly put on, and in some cases run into one another. They were produced by the impress of a thin curved slip of wood or bone slightly notched at short intervals.2

The bones of the skeleton are in good condition, and have been examined by Dr. Keith, F.R.S., who has most kindly written the full notes upon them printed below.

I was shown at the same time another lower jaw found near the same spot, but nothing seemed to be known about it. Probably it was a portion of another interment of which nothing else had been preserved by the workmen.

ED. H. GODDARD.

Abercromby, Bronze Age Pottery, I. 18. In Plate VI. he gives photographs of a number of these vessels from Wilts and Dorset.

2 The slip of bone or wood was probably convexly curved, or may have been formed like a disc or wheel. Abercromby, Bronze Age Pottery, I. 50,

note.

NOTES ON THE SKELETON FOUND IN AN EARLY
BRONZE-AGE-BURIAL AT UPAVON, 1915.

By ARTHUR KEITH, M.D., F.R.S., Conservator of Museum,
Royal College of Surgeons of England.

The man represented by these remains (a skull and lower jaw, left thigh bone, left os innominatum, two fused vertebræ, left humerus, and radius and right ulna), was beyond any doubt a typical member of that brachycephalic race which appears in Britain for the first time at the close of the Neolithic period. The person represented is an aged man-with bent back, for he had suffered from severe rheumatoid disease of the spine; the coronal suture of the skull is obliterated, the sagittal suture alınost obliterated, while the lamboid is still distinctly visible and in most parts unclosed. Although not a single tooth had been lost at the time of death, in the case of one tooth, the first upper molar of the left side, the crown has been worn away until the whole pulp cavity lies exposed. At one time or another abscesses had formed at the roots of the following teeth :-second upper incisor of the left side, first upper molar of the left side, right lateral incisor and canine of the lower jaw. There was not a speck of that common disease of modern and Roman times-caries of the teeth. The limb bones are slender with ill-developed muscular ridges-but it is very probable that these characters are but further evidence of the man's advanced age.

From the length of the limb bones-the vertical or standing height of the femur being 436mm., the humerus 311mm., the radius 253mm. we may infer that his stature, when in his prime, was about 5ft, 4in.

Characters of the Skull.

The general features of the skull may be seen from the accompanying figures. Its maximum length, 179mm., its maximum width, 148mm., giving a cephalic index of 827. The roof is remarkably low, rising at its highest point only 109mm. above the

Notes on the Skeleton found in an Early Bronze-Age-Burial. 9 ear passages. In form and proportions, especially in the lowness of its roof and rather cap-shaped occipital bone, this skull recalls the form found in the short cists (Bronze Age) of the N.E. of Scotland. The vertical and occipital views (Figs. 2 and 3) bring

Fig 1. The skull in profile oriented on the fronto-malar and asterionic plane and enclosed in a framework of lines which fits the average modern British skull. Occipital view of the skull oriented on the f. m. ast. plane.

Fig. 2.

Fig. 3. Vertex view-on the same plane.

out its outstanding feature. The skull strikes one as capacious, and yet when we apply the formula invented by Pearson and Lee

10 Notes on the Skeleton found in an Early Bronze-Age-Burial,

for estimating the cranial capacity, it turns out to be only 1376c.c. -considerably below both ancient and modern averages.

The skull feels heavy, its bones are thick, varying along the vault from 6 to 9 mm. The bones of the face are massive and strong. The supra-orbital ridges, particularly the supra-ciliary parts, are pronounced. The forehead appears wide because of the lowness of the vault; as a matter of fact the minimal frontal width -measured between the temporal lines-is 95mm.-a moderate amount. The width measured from the outer margin of one frontomalar suture to the outer border of the other, is 102mm. The face was of moderate length, upper face naso-alveolar length being 67mm.; the nasi-mental or whole length, 108mm, The width was relatively large, the bizygomatic diameter being 125mm., the malar width, measured between the lower end of the malo-maxillary sutures, 92mm. The upper jaws and cheek bones are particularly strong; the cheek bones in life must have been prominent. The nose is narrow and of medium length-the nasal height being 50mm., the width 22mm. The nasal bones are not present, but one infers that they were prominent. The orbits are wide, 40mm., as is usually the case, and of medium height (35mm.). The lower jaw is also robust. The chin forms a triangular eminence of moderate prominence. The depth or vertical measurement at the region of the symphysis is 29min., its front to back maximum thickness, 18mm. As is so commonly the case in skulls of this type, the angles of the jaws are prominent and wide apart, the bigonial diameter being 113mm. That diameter helps to give the full "jowls" which mark this beaker' race. The ascending ramus of the mandible has a width of 33mm.; the sigmoid notch is of moderate depth.

The Skeleton.

Of the bones of the skeleton little need be said. The diameter of the head of the femur is 46mm-in both its vertical and anteroposterior directions. In its upper third the femur is but moderately flattened the transverse diameter being 32mm., its antero-posterior, 27mm.—the index of flattening being thus 84. The area

for insertion of the gluteus maximus is marked by a rough troughshaped impression, with a prominent ridge marking the inner or mesial margin of the impression. The linea aspera is scarcely raised above the contour of the shaft; at the middle of the shaft the antero-posterior and transverse diameters are alike—namely, 27mm. When I mention that the shaft of the humerus at the deltoid impression has the following diameters:-antero-posterior, 21mm.; transverse, 20mm., the slenderness of the shafts of the long bones-in relation to their relatively massive articular extremities will be realized, The lower third of the ulna shows a well-marked bend-the concavity of the bend facing towards the companion radius. Such a bend is not uncommon in the ulnæ of prehistoric people, but its meaning I do not know.

Rheumatoid changes in the spinal column joints of people living during the bronze-period in England were very common. In the case of this man we have only two vertebræ, the 11th and 12th dorsal. The edges of their bodies are "lipped," and the intervertebral disc, which should separate them, has been absorbed, resulting in a partial fusion of the bony tissue of the adjoining vertebræ, The lamina of the same two vertebræ are also united by bonethe articular processes being fused. There can be no doubt that this union is the result, not of an acute inflamatory process, but of a chronic one-such as is seen in diseases of a rheumatoid uature.