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The Racial Affinities of the Romano-Britons

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 September 2012

L. H. Dudley Buxton
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Extract

In this paper I propose to limit myself strictly to one particular aspect of Romano-British ethnology, the physical type, and to consider what light the available evidence throws on the general problem of the ethnological affinities of the Romano-British population. The subject naturally falls into three parts, the actual physical type or types of the Romano-Britons, their origin, and their relation to the subsequent population of England. The question was first studied as far back as the middle of the nineteenth century by Thurnam, by him and Davis and by Davis alone in general, and, on a particular site, Frilford near Oxford, by Rolleston. Pitt-Rivers in his excavations in Cranborne Chase and elsewhere made a specially valuable contribution. These original contributions were discussed by Beddoe and Ripley amongst others.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Roman Studies , Volume 25 , Issue 1 , 1935 , pp. 35 - 50
Copyright
Copyright ©L. H. Dudley Buxton 1935. Exclusive Licence to Publish: The Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies

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References

1 Mem. Anthrop. Soc. of London, vol. i, pt. i, pp. 120 ff.; pt. ii, pp. 459 ff.; vol. iii, pp. 41 ff.

2 Crania Britannica, Thesaurus Craniorum and Supplement.

3 Archaeologia, vol. xlvii.

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6 The Races of Europe (London, 1900Google ScholarPubMed).

7 Biometrika xviii, 1926, and elsewhere in that periodical, especially vol. xx, 1928.

8 But I have tentatively included Heron Bridge near Chester.

9 Journ. R. Anthrop. Institute, 1933.

10 Biometrika xviii, 1926, p. 79Google Scholar.

11 Biometrika vxxiii, 1931.Google Scholar

12 Biometrika xxiv, 1932Google Scholar.

13 Biometrika xxv, 1933Google Scholar.

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16 Ibid. iii, 1878–9, 79, and Races of Britain, pp. 227–8.

17 Cambridge Antiquarian Soc. xiv, 1909–1910, 7Google Scholar.

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20 Excavated at Bagendon by the Rev. G. E. Rees, 1931.

21 Labelled ‘J. Thurnam, 1860, found with a coin by John Bellows (sic)’; see Church, , Corinium Museum, 10th ed., p. 47 (Rolleston)Google Scholar; Bristol and Gloucester Arch. Soc. Trans. ii, 1878, p. 146Google Scholar; see also ibid. vi, 1882, 2.

22 ‘100 yards south of Park Crescent, found with two kinds of British pottery, one British urn and two Roman urns, 1861.’ Archaeol. Oxon. pp. 52 and III; St. Mary's Entry, ‘with coin of Antoninus and potsherds, Oct. 1894.’ There are also other skulls from Oxford (Radcliffe Infirmary Grounds), some of which I excavated myself, but as there is a known cemetery of eighteenth-century date in the neighbourhood and no certain archaeological evidence was found, I have not included them; the same applies to the skulls preserved from the cemetery discovered when the present Church of SS. Philip and James was built, although they may belong to the same settlement as the Park Crescent series.

23 Excavated at various dates in the 1870'S: see Bristol and Gloucester Archaeol. Soc. Trans. vii, 1882–1883, p. 76Google Scholar.

24 Secondary interments in Crawley Barrow, see Thurnam, J., Archaeologia xxxvii, 432Google Scholar and xlii, 175; these skulls are apparently attributed to the Neolithic period by Schuster, , Biometrika iv, p. 357Google Scholar, table ii; I have remeasured them.

25 E. T. Leeds, a coin of Valens and an unidentifiable coin lay on the eyes.

26 L.H.D.B.

27 E. T. Leeds.

28 With coin of Valens, 1864 (Rolleston's MSS.).

29 Excavated at various times by Rolleston and later L.H.D.B., see Archaeologia xlii, 417 ff. and Antiquaries Journ. i, 1921, 87Google Scholar ff. There is a Saxon cemetery on the same site, and one or two doubtful specimens have had to be rejected.

30 Knight, W. F. J. J., Oxfordshire Archaeological Soc. Rep. 1929Google Scholar.

31 C. Falkner, 1867.

32 General Pitt-Rivers l.c.

33 Brit. Arch. Assoc. Journ., xxi, 267. Illustrated London News, July 2nd, 1864.

34 ‘Roman Cemetery,’ Greenwell coll.

35 F. C. Plumtre coll.

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37 Rolleston collection.

38 Pitt-Rivers, , l.c., vol. iiiGoogle Scholar.

39 Mount Cemetery, but no details available.

40 W. T. Watkins, Dec. 1870.

41 Arch. Aeliana, 2nd series, vol. vi., 1865, 80Google Scholar.

42 Greenwell coll.

43 ‘Roman cemetery, Piercebridge,’ Greenwell coll.

44 ‘With Roman pottery,’ Rolleston, 1870.

45 L.H.D.B. coll., 27.3.27.

46 Greenwell coll. There are also other skulls from Cissbury, but they may be of Early Iron Age date and have not been included.

47 Figures from Davies, Elwyn, Journ. Chester and N. Wales Architect. Archaeol. and Historical Soc., N.S., xxx, 46Google Scholar.

48 Greenwell coll., see Archaeol. Cantiana, xix, 1892. Vict. Co. Hist., Kent, iii, 174.

49 J. R. Mummery, 1870. Unfortunately I cannot 6nd any references or details about this excavation.

50 Ibid.

51 Unfortunately the number of skulls from the area of the Atrebates is very small, but provisionally it would appear that physically the people of Frilford differ somewhat from the remainder of the Dobuni, though archaeological evidence (for which I am indebted to Mr. Christopher Hawkes) suggests that Frilford belongs to the Dobunic rather than the Atrebatic area. In any case we are certainly dealing with a transitional area physically.

52 Biometrika xxi, 1926Google Scholar.

53 This series is different from a second series from the same church which contains skulls of the round-headed type and to which reference has already been made.