the varieties - Smithsonian Institution

Given hereditary conditions, we can confirm that the shape of the skull correlates with that of the brain. Thus, it is easy to understand how unstable the characteristics of the hybrid must be, for they can hardly survive for a generation in one individual.

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THE VARIETIES OF THE HUMAN SPECIES. 1

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According to my observations of craniometry, which has now become cabalistic, especially in France, due to the misuse of measures and numerical figures, indices of skull and. It therefore, necessarily and always, involves searching for types and their distinction, which is not possible using the craniometric method.

THE VARIE TIES OF THE HUMAN SPECIES. 1

THE VARIETIES OF THE HUMAN SPECIES

We know that the so-called "species" of the animal kingdom have forms derived from some variations of characteristics, and that they are so because the variations of the parent species are permanent and transmitted by heredity. I cannot venture the solution of the general question concerning the unity or plurality of the human species, considering the actual state of my personal observations, confined to Southern Europe, especially the Mediterranean, to Eastern Europe, and to the .

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Regardless of this psychological phenomenon that affects us all, the force of facts is higher than any inertia and sooner or later it will prevail. With the observations and methods I propose, I believe that many errors will be eliminated from anthropology. These errors have been accepted because we have never possessed natural scientific methods for the study of human classification, as we have zoology.

Blumenbach, in a valuable little book, attempts to apply the zoological method to man, not only for classification, but for the explanation of the causes of animal and human variation.

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The exact mean is that between individuals of the same variety, and the difference is the true individual variation. It is considered by some to be a proven fact that the cranial capacity has been increased in the course of social evolution from prehistoric times to historic times. Eminent men have confirmed this, but I have already questioned their conclusions, because the facts do not seem clear and affirmative to me.

Some years ago I wrote:^ ''The most important physical evolution of man would be that which concerns the organ of mental functions, the brain. But the facts relating to the weight and volume of the brain, and consequently to the cranial capacity, are still very doubtful and very obscure. In a recent work by Professor Schmidt, I note that the cranial capacity of the ancient Egyptians was 1394 cc.

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We must bear in mind that the forms of the latter are never final, just as they are not permanent. However, I have been able to observe and will show in a future work that skulls of persons with weakened minds, despite various changes, retain the typical shapes and are recognizable without difficulty to those experienced in the method and classes of shapes. It may also happen that some other feature may be more decisive and distinct, making it preferable, and such a feature may be visible in the norma occipitalis or norma facialis; this should then be selected as the first characteristic for distinguishing varieties.

I begin with the forms given by the norma verticalis, since they are the ones that are easily discernible and largely reducible to geometric figures. We shall call an ellipsoid the skull which in the norma verticalis presents an elliptical outline, such as is shown in the picture taken from life, and which I insert in the parallelogram to show it.

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The enlargement of the skull is at the parietals at about a third of their entire length and posteriorly. The occiput ends at the great apex of the ^^^, while the second apex is represented by the frontal. The skull has symmetrical curves; the archis not always very convex and may have a transverse curve, slightly and easily.

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It is also distinguished in the norma verticalis by a certain convexity in the sides of the skull and by the posterior rounding. The general character of this skull form is the rounding of the frontal, parietal, parieto-occipital, and the lower or basal parts of the occiput itself, by spherical curves.

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Thus, this form seems to be an elongated pouch, the opening of which is found at the bifrontal line and the bottom at the expansion of the parietal curves, whence the name. The normal Une has a sHght Swellhng in the back part and does not give the exact picture of the shape with parallel lines, while the lateral line corresponds more closely to its name. If the rounding of the corners and sides of the parallelepipedoid makes it more convex, there is the "cyHndroid," which.

Therefore, the forehead is lower, retracted (Fig. 20), and, seen from the vertical, the back of the head is narrow (Fig. 21); it occurs in the types here given, one of which (Fig. 21) is from Latium, the other from the Russian Kourgans. Such a shape is quite rare, as is the parallelepipedoid. The cube-like skull has the arch, the occipital and the sides smooth, and possibly the forehead, which is almost always vertical, at least in the small cubes. One cubical form, which approaches more closely to its typical name, has the vertical line roughly corresponding to a quadrilateral slightly elongated; but we know that the anterior is always narrower than the posterior part of the skull.

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42 THE VARIETIES OF THE HUMAN SPECIES

The skull is high on the side, the forehead vertically inclined, but slightly elevated; the arch is on the horizontal plane, sharply inclined at the top of the occipital pyramid, the outer edge or projection of the occipital level. The types given here derive (Fig. 27) from the Russian Kourgans, (Fig. 28) from modern Sicily. This variety has a striking feature that is not seen from norma. verticalis nornorma lateralis, but from norma facialis and.

This emi7nence, which I call lophus {lophos), and which is described by other anthropologists as "crania withthearch of the backbone of an ass," or^'arch Hkethe keel of aship," begins in the upper part of the frontal, at the place where the frontal curve first It is a height of the median section, with lateral depressions amounting to a slight concavity, which reaches the coronal, the highest part of the eminence and surpasses.

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This feature is so prominent and so much a part of the skull shape, to which a pathological significance has been erroneously assigned, that it alone is sufficient to constitute a distinctive variety. It is easy to distinguish a skull based on such a feature without directly considering the norma facialis or norma occipitalis, and therefore it is a good feature for classification. Among the platycephalic forms there is one that is notable for the unusual lowness of the arch, and is, moreover, very high.

It presents a small forehead and general depression of the skull from the orbital apophysis to the superior level.

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Moscow and Chersonesus, and from Melanesia, I can assert nothing of the whole number of human varieties, nor of their distribution, before I have made new and direct personal observations in the rest of Europe and other parts of the world ; I look forward with confidence and sincere desire to make such observations. The number of varieties is greatly reduced, and they are separated by definite and distinct characteristics. I cannot assert that new varieties are not to be found even in the Mediterranean plain, where I have chiefly extended my researches.

Sub-varieties should mainly retain the characteristics of the variety of which they are a variation, and should have some other characteristic, which should not be transitory and individual, but permanent and hereditary. Groups of subspecies must form real groups; variety is the main designation of characteristics common to many subspecies. While the characteristic A gives the name of the variety, the less general characteristics a, b, c, d give the subvarieties of A.

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There can also be variation in the same norm that gives the basic form; for example the ellipsoid (Fig. 38). 38, we may call *'brachyellipsoids." Such variations of elliptical forms correspond to the structure of the skull, and therefore constitute sub-varieties. Skull low from the vertex to the occipital base, as if crushed in all directions from the frontal and lateral sides, and therefore with a narrow, receding forehead, of the arch.

From the embolus, bow, because the occipital decline, which begins well forward, extends to the base of the skull, etc.

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These two characters appear separately and together in other varieties, such as in the ovoid, the platycephalus and in the elliptical subvariety. This can also be said of the roof-like shape, or stegoid, and of the hypsistegoid.

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Trapezoids.-1 have already distinguished two subvarieties with the names Trap, sardinicnsis and Trap, africus.

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Thus the trapezius has a small capacity, between elatto- and microcephalic, and never exceeds this limit; that of the Pyrgoids is larger; stenocephaly has a small capacity; coritocephalic is megalocephalic, and so on. Thus, in the classification of human varieties and sub-varieties, it is necessary to adopt technical names to indicate them; though we can only imperfectly express the whole conception of the form which we wish to indicate. For this purpose I have selected words from the Greek and secondarily from the Latin languages, because Greek words are better adapted to proper names and are easy to construct, while words in use in a modern language would be difficult for foreigners and have a vulgar meaning would be ambiguous; finally,.

It may appear that I have increased the number of technical names in my earlier VL\^vao\r,HumanVarietiesofMelan- too much. To some extent that is true, but most of the words for each variety were previously in use. It appeared that the vocabulary would be large and sibylline when other expressions were added to the name of stenocephalo, etc.