in the contracted posture which is so
characteristic of Neolithic interments generally. The men to whom these
skeletons belonged were a short race, the tallest being about 5 ft. 6
in., and the shortest 4 ft. 10 in.; their skulls are orthognathic, or
not presenting jaws advancing beyond a vertical line dropped from the
forehead, in shape long or oval, and of fair average capacity. The face
was oval, and the cheek bones were not prominent. Some of the
individuals were characterized by a peculiar flattening of the shinbone
(platycnemism), which probably stood in relation to the free action of
the foot that was not hampered by the use of a rigid sole or sandal.
This, however, cannot be looked upon as a race character, or as a
tendency towards a simian type of leg. These Neolithic cave-dwellers
have been proved to be identical in physique with the builders of the
cairns and tumuli which lie scattered over the face of Great Britain and
Ireland. (See Thurnam, _Crania Britannica_.) They have also been met
with abundantly in France. In the Caverne de l'Homme Mort, for example,
in the department of Lozere, explored in 1871, the association of
remains was of precisely the same nature as those mentioned above, and
the human skeletons were of the same small type. The same class of
remains has also been discovered in Gibraltar, in the caves of Windmill
Hill, and some others. The human remains examined by Busk are of
precisely the same type as those of Denbighshire. In the work of Don
Manuel Gongora J. Martinez (_Antiguedades prehistoricas de Andalusia_,
1868), several interments are described in the cave of Murcielagos,
which penetrates the limestone out of which the grand scenery of the
southern Sierra Nevada has been to a great extent carved. In one place a
group of three skeletons was met with, one of which was adorned with a
plain coronet of gold, and clad in a tunic made of esparto grass finely
plaited, so as to form a pattern like that on some of the gold ornaments
in Etruscan tombs. In a second spot farther within, twelve skeletons
formed a semicircle round one covered with a tunic of skin, and wearing
a necklace of esparto grass, ear-rings of black stone, and ornaments of
shell and wild boar tusk. There were other articles of plaited esparto
grass, such as baskets and sandals. There were also flint flakes,
polished-stone axes, implements of bone and wood, together with pottery
of the same type as that from Gibraltar. The same c