Abstract
SOME interesting questions are raised in the report by Sir Arthur Keith on human skeletal remains discovered last year in a cave in Kingscar, near Langcliffe, Yorkshire. The implements and weapons associated with the remains, according to a statement accompanying the report in The Times of February 24, are of Romano-British date. A detailed account of the artefacts will be given when the investigation of the cave, which is being carried out by members of the Pig Yard Club, is complete; but in the meantime Sir Arthur reports that the skeletal material submitted to him consists of the skeleton of a man, from which certain parts are missing, and fragments of at least four individuals, of whom one is a girl, one a man, and two, or possibly three, are women. The portions missing from the main burial, which was in the extended position, suggest to Sir Arthur that there has been a partial disturbance across the lower part of the body, which brought about the simultaneous removal of the missing parts. He is, however, at a loss to account for the appearance, both here and elsewhere in caves, of the fragmentary remains; though he is disinclined to regard them, as do some authorities, as evidence of the survival of cannibalism in Britain to so late a date. It will be interesting to see how far the detailed stratigraphic evidence supports the natural presumption of disturbance. It is unfortunate that the missing parts include both the thighbones; but on the evidence of the left tibia, which has survived, the stature has been calculated as five feet five inches. In the measurements which have been made, the most marked feature is the length of the head, which gives the low cranial index of 69.3. In general character, the remains suggest a population comparable to the late Celtic (Romano-British) population of the west of Britain.
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Romano-British Cave Burial in Yorkshire. Nature 137, 355 (1936). https://doi.org/10.1038/137355b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/137355b0