| mm. | |||
|
122 | (4.8") | |
|
138 | (5.5") | |
|
155 | (6.25") | |
|
9 |
The cranial contents, estimated in millet-seed, amount to 36 ounces, 312 drachms, Prussian apothecaries' weight.
Another instance of a similar cranial form has occurred in Mecklenburg; and the circumstance under which the skull was found again point to a high antiquity. In the year 1852, a human skeleton, with a bronze sword, was found in a sepulchral mound, termed "the Herberg," under a stone cairn, covered with an earthern mound. The skull presented a regular Caucasian form. Beneath a stone foundation, upon which the body lay extended, were found eight skulls lying in the same direction, the faces looking towards the west; beneath these were innumerable bones lying one upon another, the arm-bones appearing above the thigh-bones, as if in this spot eight bodies had been placed side by side in the ground in a crouching or squatting posture. The bones were so rotten, that only a few of them could be preserved. A frontal bone, which was also sent to me by Dr. Lisch, presented in the great prominence of the supraorbital ridges, the low retreating forehead, and the broad root of the nose, a great similarity with the Plau cranium; but the projection was far less considerable; and the thin bone with the ossified coronal suture appeared to belong to a young or female cranium; it adhered to the tongue, like the Plau cranium. The assumption that the eight bodies placed in the foundation belonged to a more ancient period than the principal corpse, is not justified by the more decayed condition of their bones, which obviously depends upon the way in which they were buried; it is far more probable that these eight bodies were those of slaves, sacrificed at the interment of the warrior. That the Germani, when they immigrated into Germany, met with an indigenous population, is indubitable from historical and linguistic indications. The position in a crouching or squatting posture is not Germanic, it indicates a higher antiquity; but the custom may have maintained itself even into the time of the Germani, together with the remnants of the aboriginal population. As among the Esquimaux and Greenlanders, and several American tribes, the dead are placed in the graves in a sitting posture, so, according to Nilsson,[1] human skeletons in a squatting posture occur only in the more ancient graves in Scandinavia, as, for instance, in the Axevalla-Haide. These primitive graves are covered with great stones, and they never contain any objects of metal, nor any indication of cremation having
- ↑ Jahrbuch. der Vereins f. Mecklenb. Gesch. u. Alterthumskunde. 1849, xiv., p. 301.
