THE RACES OF EUROPE

again non-Keltic, although the stature, 167 cm., is presumably no different from that of the Kelts.⁴²

It is impossible to derive this group from the local Neolithic, which was noted for its extreme absolute cranial length; or from the dolichocephalic element of the Bronze Age, which was again larger, longer, and higher skulled; it resembles not only the earlier Aunjetitz and Hallstatt, but also, although to a lesser degree, the contemporary Scandinavian Iron Age people in the period immediately before the Germanic Volkerwanderung. All of the archaeological material found in the Danes’ Graves has never been satisfactorily identified.⁴⁸ Although the dominant Keltic tribe of that neighborhood, the Parisii, seems culturally represented, it is unlikely on archaeological as well as on racial grounds that the majority of the men buried in these graves came from the Marne, whence the usual Bry- thonic tribes migrated to England. Two of the fibulae found in the scanty remains have Scandinavian affinities; despite this clue, however, we must leave open the question of the immediate origin of the Danes’ Graves people, and render the verdict: “Central European Nordics found in Yorkshire during the late Iron Age, provenience unknown.”

Another local group which shows aberrant tendencies is that of eleven male crania from Berkshire, of which the length, breadth, and circum­ference alone are available; ⁴⁴ the figures are 193.3 mm., 149.6 mm., and 552.2 mm. The cranial index is 77. These mesocephalic crania are so much larger than those of the total Iron Age population that some other origin must be postulated. One recalls the extravagant dimensions of both Neolithic and Bronze Age crania in England, and may only suppose that this local group represents a relatively unaffected survival. Since both Bronze Age and Neolithic racial types may be picked out of any moderate­sized gathering of living Englishmen, or of their transatlantic relatives, it is not surprising to find a few in Berkshire during the Iron Age.

The descriptions of the Kelts, in Britain, in France, and in other parts of Europe, at the hands of classical authors, give us a definite picture of their pigmentation. Blondism was by no means characteristic of the Kelts as a whole. Rufosity was common, and the hair color was essentially mixed. Caesar himself noted the contrast between the ordinary Gauls and the partly Germanic Belgae, to whom he had to turn to find real blonds for his triumph. Furthermore, the Romans noted the Keltic practice of bleaching the hair to simulate a blond ideal, as in Greece.

38. We know the stature of Kelts in the British Isles only from a small Irish group, and by inference from comparison with mediaeval English counterparts of Iron Age skele­tons.

39. Greenwell, w., Archaeologia, vol. 60, part 1, pp. 251-312.

Bremer, W., Real, vol. 1, pp. 229-230, article “Arras.”

38. Morant, g. M., Biometrika, 1926, vol. 18, pp. 56-98.