Some of the bones were broken and much decayed, while others, when carefully extracted, dried and helped out with a little thin glue, became very sound and showed by the surface markings that they had suffered only from the moisture and not from any wear in transport.

The most interesting point about them is the protuberant brow, which, when first seen on the detached frontal bone, before the skull had been restored, suggested comparison with that of the Neanderthal man.

Much greater importance was attached to that character when the Neanderthal skull was found.

When I announced the discovery of the Shippea man the point on which I laid most stress was that, notwithstanding his protuberant brow, he could not possibly be of the age of the deposits to which the Neanderthal man was referred. I stated "my own conviction that the peat in which the Shippea man was found cannot be older than Neolithic times and may be much newer" and, believing that similar prominent brow ridges are not uncommon to-day, I suggested that he might be even as late as the time of the monks of Ely who had a Retreat on Shippea Hill.

The best authorities who have seen the skull since it has been restored by Mr C. E. Gray, our skilful First Attendant in the Sedgwick Museum, refer it to the Bronze Age which falls well within the limits which I assigned.

This skull is unique among the few that I have obtained from the Fens. Dr Duckworth has described[9] most of these, and I subjoin a description of the Shippea man by Professor Alexander Macalister.

  Description of the Shippea Man by Prof. A. Macalister.

"The calvaria is large, dark coloured and much broken. The base, facial bones and part of the left brow ridge and glabella are gone. The sutures are coarsely toothed and visible superficially although ankylosis has set in in the inner face. The bone is fairly thick (8·10 mm.), and on the inner face the pacchionian pits are large and deep on each side of the middle line especially in the bregmatic part of the frontal and the post-bregmatic part of the parietals. The superior longitudinal groove is deep but narrow, and, as far as the broken condition allows definite tracing, the cerebral convolution impressions are of the typical pattern.

"The striking feature is the prominent brow ridge due to the large frontal sinus. The glabella was probably prominent and the margins on each side are large and rough and extend outwards to the supraorbital notches. The outer part of the supraorbital margin and the processus jugalis are thick, coarse and prominent (Fig. 7).

"In norma verticalis the skull is ovoid-pentagonoid euryme-topic with conspicuous rounded parietal eminences, slight flattening at the obelion and a convex planum interparietale below it (Fig. 8).

"In norma lateralis the brow ridges are conspicuous; above them is the sulcus transversus from which the frontal ascends with a fairly uniform curve to the bregma. The frontal sagittal arc above the ophryon measures 112 mm. and its chord 116. Behind the bregma the parietals along the front half of the sagittal suture have a fairly flat outline to the medio-parietal region, behind which the flattened obelion is continued downwards with a uniform slope to the middle of the planum interparietale whence it probably descended by a much steeper curve to the inion, which is lost. The parietal sagittal arc, including the region where there was probably a supra-lambdoid ossicle, was about 140 mm. and its chord 121 but the curve is not uniform.

"In norma occipitalis the sagittal suture appears at the summit of a ridge whose parietal sides slope outwards forming with each other an angle of 138°, as far as the parietal eminences. From these the sides drop vertically down to the large mastoid processes. The intermastoid width at the tips of the processes is 115, but at the supramastoid crest is 148 (Fig. 9).

"In norma frontalis the conspicuous feature is the brow ridge. This gives a kind of superficial suggestion of a Neanderthaloid shape, but the broad and well arched frontal dispels the illusory likeness. The jugal processes jut out giving a biorbital breadth of 115 mm. while the least frontal width is 97 and the bistephanic expands to 125. There is a slight median ridge on the frontal ascending from the ophryon, at first narrow but expanding at the bregma to 50 mm. The surface of this elevated area is a little smoother than that of the bone on each side of it.

"The other long bones are mostly broken at their extremities. The femora are strong and platymeric. The postero-lateral rounded edge, which bears on its hinder face the insertion of the gluteus maximus, taken in connexion with the projection of the thin medial margin of the shaft below the tuberculum colli inferior causes the upper end of the shaft to appear flattened. The index of platymeria is ·55. The femoral length cannot have been less than 471 mm. The man was probably of middle stature, not a giant as was the Gristhorpe man. The tibiæ are also broken at their ends, they are eurycnemic (index ·80) with sharp sinuous shin and flat back, the length may have been between 335 and 340 mm. The humeri are also bones with strong muscular crests, and the ulnæ are smooth and long. The fibula was channelled. There is nothing in the bone-features which is inconsistent with the reference of the skull to the Brachycephalic Bronze Age race.

"In the following Table are recorded the measurements of the different regions. The two crania which I have selected to compare with it are (1) a Round-barrow skull from near Stonehenge (No. 179 in our Collection) and (2) the Gristhorpe skull, to both of which it bears a very strong family likeness.

"The resemblance to the two Round-barrow skulls of the Bronze Age is too great to be accidental, so we may regard this as a representative of that race, possibly at an earlier stage than the typical form of which the two selected specimens are examples (Fig. 10).

"The mandible also resembles that of the Gristhorpe skull in general shape of angle and prominence of chin.

"The measurements are as appended:

Shippea Stonehenge Hill (No. 179) Gristhorpe Condylo mental length 131 — 130 Gonio mental length 100 — 99 Bigoniac 115 — 116 Bicondylar 139 — 141 Chin height 32 — 33"

Cambridge:
PRINTED BY JOHN CLAY, M.A.
AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS

Footnotes

  [1]

Times, Cambridge Chronicle, May 31, 1862.

  [2]

Times, Jan. 16, 1915.

  [3]

Cf. Archaeol. Journ. Vol. LXIX, No. 274 2nd Ser.; Vol. XIX, No. 2, pp. 205-214.

  [4]

Lib. XVI, cap. 1.

  [5]

History of Croyland, Bohn's edition, p. 282.

  [6]

"On the Mollusca of the Pleistocene Gravels in the neighbourhood of Cambridge," by Mrs M^cKenny Hughes. Geol. Mag. Decade 3, Vol. V, No. 5, May 1888, p. 193.

  [7]

"The Evolution of the British Breeds of Cattle," Journ. R. Agric. Soc. Vol. V, Ser. 3, pp. 561-563, 1894. "On the more important Breeds of Cattle which have been recognised in the British Isles in successive periods, and their relation to other archaeological and historical discoveries," Archaeologia, Vol. V, Ser. 3, pp. 125-158, 1896. Cf. also Morse, E. W., "The Ancestry of domesticated Cattle," Twenty-seventh Annual Report of the Bureau of Animal Industry, 1910, Department of Agriculture, U.S.A.

  [8]

Annales des Sciences Naturelles, Zool. (5), Vol. VIII, Pl. 14, pp. 285-293. Ibis, 1868, pp. 363-370, Proc. Zool. Soc. 1868, p. 2. Trans. Norfolk and Norwich Naturalists Soc. Vol. VII, Pt. 2, 1901. Geol. Mag. No. 447, N.S. Dec. 4, Vol. VIII, No. 9, p. 422.

  [9]

Duckworth and Shore, Man, No. 85, 1911, pp. 134, 139.