While these genealogies, much garbled by writers accustomed only to patrilinear succession, show the frequent succession of a daughter or a daughter’s son, it may well be urged that there is no evidence of the importance of the maternal uncle, or of the _avunculi potestas_ of Sir James Frazer. This is undoubtedly true, and no reasonable claim can be made that this particular form of matrilinear succession obtained in Minoan Greece. But are we sure that there is only one type of matrilinear succession? The forms of patrilinear succession are not all alike. The laws on this subject varied between the Ripuarian and the Salic Franks, the British crown passes by a rule which differs from that governing the descent of a peerage, and peerages granted by letters patent differ from those dependent upon a writ of summons. I submitted the point recently to the late Dr. Rivers, who told me that it was his opinion that several types of matrilinear succession had probably existed and that he had found evidence of two in Melanesian society. I do not suggest that the evidence which I have cited shows the typical matrilinear succession as it is commonly understood, or that among pre-Hellenic peoples “the father did not count,”[533] but it seems to hint that the succession was in the process of passing from some form of matrilinear to some form of patrilinear descent. Perhaps it may only indicate that the eldest child succeeded regardless of sex, but in any case there appears to be sufficient evidence for assuming that in Minoan cities an heiress counted for more politically than she did in “Achæan” households. It is well, too, to remember in this connection that these Minoan tyrants were probably Prospectors and that among another group of Prospectors, the Etruscans, “it is, of course, agreed on all hands that such a system did exist.”[534] BIBLIOGRAPHY The following abbreviations have been used:-- A. L’Anthropologie. A.A. Archäologischen Anzeiger. A.A.A. Annals of Archæology and Anthropology. Liverpool. A.A. & E. Archivo per l’Antropologia e la Etnologia. A.d.P. Annales de Paléontologie. A.f.A. Archives für Anthropologie. A.J. The Antiquaries’ Journal. A.J.P.A. American Journal of Physical Anthropology. Washington, D.C. A.M. Atlantic Monthly. A.R. Asiatick Researches. A. & R. Atene e Roma. Arch. Archæologia. Arch. Camb. Archæologia Cambrensis. B.P. Bullettino di Paletnologia Italiana. B.S.A. British School at Athens. B.S.A.L. Bulletin de la Société d’Anthropologie de Lyon. B.S.A.P. Bulletin de la Société d’Anthropologie de Paris. B.S.R. British School at Rome.