Evolution (Biology); Glacial epoch; Human beings -- Origin; Human evolution
"To prevent the possibility of reasoning in a vicious circle, however,
I thought it would be well to endeavour to ascertain what amount of
cranial variation is to be found in a pure race at the present day; and
as the natives of Southern and Western Australia are probably as pure
and homogeneous in blood, customs, and language, as any race of savages
in existence, I turned to them, the more readily as the Hunterian museum
contains a very fine collection of such skulls.
"I soon found it possible to select from among these crania two
(connected by all sorts of intermediate gradations), the one of which
should very nearly resemble the Engis skull, while the other should
somewhat less closely approximate the Neanderthal cranium in form, size,
and proportions. And at the same time others of these skulls presented
no less remarkable affinities with the low type of Borreby skull.
"That the resemblances to which I allude are by no means of a merely
superficial character, is shown by the accompanying diagram (Figure 6),
which gives the contours of the two ancient and of one of the Australian
skulls, and by the following table of measurements.
TABLE 5/1.
COLUMN 1: TYPE OF SKULL.
COLUMN 2 (A): The horizontal circumference in the plane of a line
joining the glabella with the occipital protuberance.
COLUMN 3 (B): The longitudinal arc from the nasal depression along the
middle line of the skull to the occipital tuberosity.
COLUMN 4 (C): From the level of the glabello-occipital line on each
side, across the middle of the sagittal suture to the same point on the
opposite side.
COLUMN 5 (D): The vertical height from the glabello-occipital line.
COLUMN 6 (E): The extreme longitudinal measurement.
COLUMN 7 (F): The extreme transverse measurement.*
(* I have taken the glabello-occipital line as a base in
these measurements, simply because it enables me to compare
all the skulls, whether fragments or entire, together. The
greatest circumference of the English skull lies in a plane
considerably above that of the glabello-occipital line, and
amounts to 22 inches.)
Engis : 20 1/2: 13 3/4: 12 1/2: 4 3/4: 7 3/4: 5 1/4.
Australian,
Number 1: 20 1/2: 13 : 12 : 4 3/4: 7 1/2: 5 4/10.
Australian,
Number 2: 22 : 12 1/2: 10 3/4: 3 8/10: 7.9: 5 3/4.
Neanderthal: 23 : 12 : 10 : 3 3/4: 8 : 5 3/4.
"The question whether the Engis skull has rather the character of one
of the high races or of one of the lower has been much disputed, but the
following measurements of an English skull, noted in the catalogue of
the Hunterian museum as typically Caucasian (see Figure 4) will serve to
show that both sides may be right, and that cranial measurements alone
afford no safe indication of race.
English : 21 : 13 3/4: 12 1/2: 4 4/10: 7 7/8: 5 1/3.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account