PREHISTORIC INTERMENT NEAR WALTON-ON-NAZE. 205
relating to its antiquity have been observed and gathered with
accuracy.
" When you first showed me the delicately moulded and
rather diminutive skull I gave it as my opinion that it must
be that of a woman ; but as you pointed out, the pelvis left no
doubt as to the sex : it is that of a man. My preliminary mistake
emphasises the character of the whole body—it is finely moulded,
slender, feminine in type.3
" By actual measurement I estimate the height to be 1592
mm. (5 feet 23/4 inches), and by comparison with skeletons in the
Museum there can be little doubt that the estimate is accurate.
" He was a young man : the wisdom teeth are just coming
into use, and the last epiphyseal lines of the long bones closing,
so we may regard him as about 23 or 24. He was a rather
slender and dapper young man, but finely formed, straight,
and well proportioned. His legs are straight and symmetrical,
and bear a normal proportion to arms, trunk, and head. There
is no abnormal or pathological condition of the left knee,
to account for its straight position in the grave. He is just a
little fellow, such as one may see busy in the offices of the city
to-day.
" The forehead is well proportioned and rather high. The
brain also is well proportioned, although small : its volume
being only 1260 cubic centimetres, the normal being about
1540 c.c. Still, in proportion to the body, it is not so abnormally
small, and certainly because it is small must not be adjudged
primitive.
" The shape of the head is that which we associate with
typical modern English youths at our universities and schools :
prominent occiput, and slender neck. Its maximum length is
173.5 mm., its maximum breadth 137 mm., its height measured
from the meatus of the ear 116 mm. All these measurements
are about 10 to 15 mm. below the modern average. The
breadth is 78.9 per cent. of the length [the cephalic index] ;
the height 67 per cent. of the length. The skull therefore
inclines towards the short-headed form. All these proportions
are very common to-day. (Plate xiv)
3 As this paper was passing through the press, Dr. Keith writes to say that the question
of the sex of the skeleton presents some difficulties. From a more thorough examination of
the bones he finds that everything but the pelvis is so distinctively feminine in form that he
is now inclined to think that it must be a case of a woman with a contracted pelvis, and not
a man.