The skulls and bone-fragments which form the subject of
Professor Virchow's present examination come from three places
— Hanal Tepeh, a hill of the Troad ; Ren Kioi, near the site of the
ancient Ophrynion ; and Hissarlik, identified by Dr. Schliemann
with Ilion. A solitary specimen of a skull was also furnished
from Tchamlidcha by Mr. Frank Calvert, to whom Dr. Virchow
owes most of his material. Unfortunately, the specimens from
the probable site of Troy are so broken and defective, that they
had to be taken to pieces and recomposed six or seven times,
without any satisfactory result Many bones had, during the
long period of their being buried in the ruins, got entirely out of
shape ; large parts of the skulls are missing. A certain arbi-
trariness in the attempts at restoration cannot, therefore, be
avoided. Experiments had, moreover, to be stopped at last
from fear of entirely destroying the fragile material. This fact
alone will show that hasty conclusions must be avoided, quite
irrespective of the smallness of the number of specimens on
which an opinion can in this case be founded.
Upon the whole, the oldest skulls from the three places
mentioned have, according to Professor Virchow, more of a long-
headed structure, with a single exception. The short heads and
the heads of medium height prevail at Ren Kioi ; the only two
instances there of apparent dolichokephalic structure being due to
an accident " The idea " — Professor Virchow here says — "that
Turanian admixture is the cause of relative short-headedness
must for the nonce be relegated to the background, seeing that
the other characteristics very little favour such an assumption.
