nathous, and that the difficulty remained no nearer solution, inasmuch as there were no prognathous races in Britain at that time. Anglo-Saxon or Danish settlers with these facial characteristics may, however, have come in as individuals, partly of Finnish and partly of Ugrian descent. The Esthonians are closely allied to the Fins, and prognathism has been found to be a characteristic of some of their skulls. In dealing with this subject, we have only to consider it so far as it may be concerned with the question of the settlement of England, and that question is: Did the Fins, Esthonians, or other Eastman take any part in that settlement? A well-marked tendency to prognathism is also exhibited by certain skulls from Anglo-Saxon graves at Winklebury, Dorset, as described by Beddoe, as well as in those described by Horton-Smith. Beddoe says that the Saxon skulls found at Winklebury are, on the whole, more prognathous than the Romano-British skulls found in the same neighbourhood. The same prognathous characteristic may be observed rarely even now among English people individually, and these individual peculiarities must have been caused by some racial fusion. It may have been due to some ancestor in recent centuries marrying a prognathous Asiatic, or it may be a race-characteristic of a very remote ancestor, which, as is well known, often shows itself after many generations.
The existence of a physical character such as this in some of the Anglo-Saxon people cannot be passed by. On this subject Beddoe says: ‘There are in my lists more than 40 persons who are noted as prognathous. Of these, 29 are English, 5 Welsh, and 11 Irish.’[1] This refers to individuals who actually came under his observations. He mentions also three skulls from the Phœnix Park tumuli, of which two are figured in the ‘Crania Britannica,’ and others from the bed of the Nore at Borris, figured in Laing and Huxley’s ‘Prehistoric Remains of Caitlmess,’ which show the tendency to prognathism to be of remote
- ↑ Beddoe, J., ‘Races of Britain,’ p. 10.
