An account of some skulls discovered at Brandon, Suffolk / by Charles S. Myers.

  • Myers, Charles S. (Charles Samuel), 1873-1946.
Date:
1896
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: An account of some skulls discovered at Brandon, Suffolk / by Charles S. Myers. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    THE CHARLES MYERS LIBRARY NATIONAL INSTITUTED INDUSTRIAL PSYCHOLOGY U, WELBEGK STREET LONDON, W.l. An Account of some Skulls discovered at Brandon, Suffolk. By Charles S. Myers, B.A., Shuttleworth Scholar of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge. A. Introductory. At Professor Macalister’s request, I undertook during the month of July, 1895, to measure and describe this series of sixty- three skulls, then recently secured by him for the Anatomical Museum of Cambridge University. The circumstances under which the skulls were obtained did not allow of my presence at their excavation; but I have visited the spot where the discovery was made, and have gathered all possible information on the matter. Brandon is a village and parish on the borders of Suffolk and Norfolk, which are here separated by the Little Ouse or Brandon River. Lying on the eastern margin of the fens, Brandon has long been noted for its flint quarries, as they are believed to have been worked continuously since the Neolithic Period. The majority of the inhabitants are dark, a feature that contrasts with the general Anglian fairness of Norfolk and Suffolk. Their language and customs are said still to bear evidence of pre-Roman times.(a) Two Roman camps once lay situated within a very few miles from Brandon. Near them and Brandon ran the Icknield Way, an old road probably built by the Iceni before the Roman invasion. The skulls were found in a field just outside Brandon within 80 yards from the river. In February, 1894, an infuriated bull tore up the earth at the spot and revealed a skull. No active notice, however, was taken of this discovery until the spring of the following year, when three holes were dug in the sandy soil. The first was crescentic, measuring 18 yards in length, and averaging 3 yards in breadth; the other two holes were smaller, about 8x4 yards, and have not hitherto yielded so many skulls as the first. These three holes were dug on the top of a large circular elevation, about 50 yards in diameter, which was surrounded by a depressed area of ground and at no point rose more than 3 feet above the average plain of the grassy meadow. Along the whole extent of the a