Report on a Skeleton Found Buried in an Extended Supine Position at Mundford and Assigned by the Finders to the Bronze Period

Extract

This skeleton is almost complete, the only part of importance which is missing being the region of the forehead and upper part of the face. The skeleton is that of a particularly robustly built man, about 5-ft. 5-in. or 5-ft. 6-in. in height, (1.660 M) aged about 60, with severe rheumatic changes in the spine and extreme disease of the teeth. Most of his characters are those of men whose remains are found in round barrows and other British burials which contain earthenware beakers of the bronze age. He is not a representative specimen of the “beaker” type, but most of his features resemble those of that type.

The maximum length of the skull I estimate to have been 188 m.m.; its greatest width is 147 m.m., the width being 78.2% of the length. It is quite true that the skull is longer than is usually the case in beaker men, yet its form as seen in profile, the fulness of the cerebellar region and particularly the massive size of the great enternal occipital crest for the attachment of the neck, are “beaker” features.

The vault is high, its highest point above the ear-passages when the skull is oriented in the Frankfort plane, being 122 m.m. The height of the skull also favours his relationship to the beaker type.