was long-headed (_dolicocephalic_)
while those of the Round Barrows were round-headed (_brachycephalic_).
It must not, however, be imagined that there is any special connection
between a long head and a long barrow, or a round head and a round
barrow. The point of special importance is that the Long-Headed Race
was the earlier, and that it was followed by a Round-Headed Race. Such
a state of things is after all perfectly within the range of facts as
known to-day. The early race, comparatively short, and armed only with
stone weapons, must in the struggle for existence, have given place to
a taller and more powerful people, provided with metal and possessed
of a higher culture. There is no proof that the early race was
exterminated by the bronze-using people. It is far more probable that
a similar condition existed to that which obtains to-day in America,
where the stone-using aborigines are slowly vanishing, and giving
place to an Eastern invasion which has gradually displaced them. And
whence came this powerful dominant race? It may safely be assumed that
it came from the East. In this country the wave of Conquest has always
flowed from east to westwards. Further, the man of the Long Barrow
himself came from the East and displaced the earlier Palaeolithic
dweller about the close of the last Glacial Epoch, only in his turn to
give place to the succeeding wave of taller and more alert settlers
who followed him. These again melted away before the Roman, the Saxon,
the Dane, and Norman, who in due course swept westward to these Isles,
and similarly displaced one another. There is a recognised "Megalithic
Route," as it is called, marked by huge stone monuments of the nature
of Stonehenge, which, starting in India, can be traced to Persia,
Palestine, Arabia, Morocco, Algeria, Tunis, Spain, Portugal, and
Brittany, finally crossing the Channel to Devon and Cornwall. It must
not be understood that these circles were all of them temples, or that
they all belong to the Bronze Age. Many of them were merely stones set
up round a Long Barrow. Aristotle states that the Iberians were in the
habit of placing as many stones round the tomb of a dead warrior as he
had slain enemies. A similar practice existed among the Australian
aborigines. At all events the practice of erecting circular stone
structures in all parts of the world seems to link together all
primitive peoples of every age into one common chain of ideas, and of
those customs