exceptionally large and heavy brains occur among the most civilised
races, in some cases—and in some only—accompanied with corresponding
manifestations of unusual intellectual power; so also it becomes
apparent that skulls much exceeding the average, and some of remarkable
internal capacity, are met with among barbarian races, and even among
some of the lowest savages. Taking the crania in the elaborate series of
tables in Dr. J. B. Davis’s _Thesaurus Craniorum_, with an internal
capacity above 100 cubic inches, they will rank in order as follows:—
Chinese 111.8
Maduran 110.6
Marquesan 110.6
Kanaka 108.8
Javan 107.
Negro 105.8
Australian 104.5
Kafir 104.5
Bakele 103.3
Tidorese 103.3
Bhotia 102.7
Bodo 100.9
Hindoo 100.9
Sumatra 100.9
Among the European series the largest is an Irish cranium of 121.6 cubic
inches, and next to it comes an Italian, 114.3, and an Englishman,
112.4; an ancient Briton from a Yorkshire Long Barrow, 109.4; an ancient
Roman, 106.4; a Lapp, 105.8; an ancient Gaul, 103.7; a Briton of Roman
times, 103.3; a Merovingian Frank, 101.5; and an Anglo-Saxon, 100.9.
Those and other examples of the like kind are full of interest as
showing the recurrence of megalocephalic variations from the common
cranial and cerebral standard among ancient races; and among rudest
savages as well as among the most cultivated classes of modern civilised
nations. But the order shown in the above instances is derived from
purely exceptional examples, and is no key to the relative capacity of
the races named.
Opportunities for testing the size and weight of the brain among
barbarous races are only rarely accessible to those who are qualified to
avail themselves of them for the purposes of science. Some near
approximation to the relative brain-weight of the English, Scotch,
German, and French, may now be assumed to have been established. Dr.
Thurnam instituted a comparison between those and two of the prehistoric
races of Britain—the Dolichocephali of the Long Barrows, and the
Brachycephali of the Round Barrows of England.[176] The results are
curious, as showing not only a greater capacity in the ancient British
skulls than the average modern German, French, or English head; but an
actual average higher than that of all but five of the most
distinguished men of Europe, whose brain-weights have been recorded. On
comparing the ancient skulls with those of modern Europeans, as
determined by gauging the capacity of both by the same process, the
following are the results presented, according to the authorities
named:—
TABLE VII
───────────────────────┬──────────┬──────────┬────────┬──────────┬────────
│ │ │ │ │
│ │ │ │Capacity. │ Brain-
SKULLS OF MEN. │ No. │ Weight │ Cubic │ Centi- │ weight
│ │ of Sand. │ In. │ metres. │oz. av.
│ │ │ │ │
───────────────────────┼──────────┼──────────┼────────┼──────────┼────────
│ │ │ │ │
Anc. British, L. │ 18 │ 82 │ 99 │ 1622 │ 54.0
Barrows │ │ │ │ │
Anc. British, R. │ 18 │ 80½ │ 98 │ 1605 │ 53.5
Barrows │ │ │ │ │
Mod. English, _Morton_ │ 28 │ 77 │ 94 │ 1540 │ 52.2
Mod. French, _Broca_ │ 357 │ 74 │ 91 │ 1502 │ 50.6
Mod. German, _Welcker_ │ 30 │ 72 │ 88 │ 1450 │ 49.0
│ │ │ │ │
───────────────────────┴──────────┴──────────┴────────┴──────────┴────────
The highest average of any nationality, as determined by Drs. Reid and
Peacock from the weighing of 157 brains of male patients, chiefly
Scottish Lowlanders, in the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh, is little more
than 50 oz., or 1417 grammes; whereas the estimated average brain-weight
in the ancient British skulls is 54 oz. for the Dolichocephali of the
Long Barrows, which equals that of Sir James Simpson, and exceeds all
but six of the most distinguished men adduced in Table IV. For the
Brachycephali of the Round Barrows it is 53.5 oz., which is in excess of
the brain-weights of Agassiz, Chalmers, Whewell, and other distinguished
men, and exactly accords with that of Daniel Webster and Lord Chancellor
Campbell. In so far, moreover, as this illustrates the cerebral capacity
of ancient races, it is in each case an average obtained by gauging
eighteen skulls, and not the cranial capacity of one or two
exceptionally large ones. Dr. Thurnam does indeed suggest that the
Barrows may have been the sepulchres of chiefs; nor is this unlikely;
but the superior vigour and mental endowment which this implies fails to
account for a cerebral capacity surpassing all but the most
distinguished men of science and letters in modern Europe referred to in
the above table. Rather may we conclude from this, as from other
evidence, that quality of brain may, within certain limits, be of more
significance than mere quantity; and that brains of the same volume, and
agreeing in weight, may greatly differ in minute structure and in powers
of cerebration.
In the case of the ancient British Barrow-Builders we seem to have large
heads and remarkable development of brain, without any indications of an
equivalent in intellectual power; and although the estimated
brain-weight derived from gauging the capacity of the empty chamber of
the skull proceeds on the assumption of mass and weight agreeing,
sufficient data exist to justify the adoption of this for approximate
results. The average weight of brain of twelve male Negroes of
undetermined tribes, deduced from gauging their skulls, has been
ascertained to amount to 1255 grammes, or 44.3 oz. The actual weight of
brain of the Negro of Guinea, described by Professor Calori, was 1260
grammes; and other examples vary considerably from the average. Mascagni
gives 1458 grammes as the weight of one Negro brain weighed by him;
equivalent to an actual brain-weight of 51.5 oz., which is greater than
that of Dupuytren, Whewell, Hermann, Tiedemann, or Grote. Nevertheless,
although the extremes are great, and are confirmed by a like diversity
in measurements of the horizontal circumference and of internal
capacity, the average result given above appears to be a fair and
reliable one.
Thus far the inquiry into data illustrative of comparative size and
weight of brain has dealt chiefly with the races of the eastern
hemisphere. The compass is great in point of time in so far as it
embraces savage and civilised peoples, including the barbarians of
Europe’s Palæolithic era, along with modern tribes of Asia, Africa, and
Australia, and some of the most notable among the prehistoric races of
the British Isles. The compass is equally great in the range of
intellectual development, when to those are added data illustrative of
the average brain-weight of some of the leading nations of modern
Europe, and a series of examples derived from noted instances of the
highest exceptional types of intellectual power and activity in recent
times. Some general conclusions of a comprehensive kind seem to follow
legitimately from this evidence. Notwithstanding the prominence given to
the assumed evidence of a low type of skull, depressed forehead, and
poor frontal development, in the assumed primitive European Canstadt
race, when we keep in view the enormous interval of time assumed to
separate “those savages who peopled Europe in the Palæolithic age” from
our own era, the amount of difference in size and apparent brain-weight
is not remarkable. Compared with those of contemporary savage races it
suggests no more than the accompanying development of the brain in a
ratio with the intellectual activities of progressive civilisation, and
even then the relative brain-mass of the lowest type is suggestive of
latent powers only needing development. But the old and later races of
the New World stand in a different relation to each other; and the
process thus far employed when applied to determine the comparative
cranial capacities of the native American races, discloses results of a
different character, and widely at variance with those above described
relating to the ancient races of Britain. On the continent of America
the native ethnical scale embraces a comparatively narrow range, and any
intrusive elements are sufficiently recent to be easily eliminated. The
Patagonian and the Fuegian rank alongside of the Bushman, the Andaman
Islander, or the Australian, as among the lowest types of humanity;
while the Aztecs, Mayas, Quichuas, and Aymaras, attained to the highest
scale which has been reached independently by any native American race.
We owe to the zealous and indefatigable labours of Dr. Morton, alike in
the formation of his great collection of human crania, and in the
published results embodied in the _Crania Americana_, a large amount of
knowledge derived from this class of evidence in reference to the races
of the New World. In one respect, at least, those results stand out in
striking contrast to the large-headed barbarian Barrow-Builders of
ancient Britain. Dr. Morton subdivides the American races into the
Toltecan race, embracing the semi-civilised communities of Mexico,
Bogota, and Peru, and the barbarous tribes scattered over the continent
from the Arctic circle to Tierra del Fuego. His latest views are
embodied in a contribution to Schoolcraft’s _History of the Indian
Tribes of the United States_, entitled “The Physical Type of the
American Indians.” In treating of the volume of brain, he draws special
attention to the Peruvian skulls, 201 in number, obtained for him from
the cemeteries of Pisco, Pachacamac, and Arica. “Herera informs us that
Pachacamac was sacred to priests, nobles, and other persons of
distinction; and there is ample evidence that Arica and Pisco, though
free to all classes, were among the most favoured cemeteries of Peru.”
Dr. Morton accordingly adds: “It is of some importance to the present
inquiry, that nearly one-half of this series of Peruvian crania was
obtained at Pachacamac; whence the inference that they belonged to the
most intellectual and cultivated portion of the Peruvian nation; for in
Peru learning of every kind was an exclusive privilege of the ruling
caste.” In reality, however, later additions to our knowledge of the
physical characteristics of the ancient Peruvians tend to confirm the
idea of the existence of two distinct races: a patrician order occupying
a position analogous to the Franks of Gaul or the Normans of England,
though more aptly to be compared to the Brahmins of India; and a more
numerous class, constituting the labouring and industrial orders of the
community, abundantly represented in the Pacific coast tribes of Peru,
the cemeteries of which have furnished the larger number of crania to
European and American collections.
To such a patrician order or caste the intellectual superiority and
privileges of the governing race pertained. But whatever may have been
the exclusive prerogatives of the patrician and sacerdotal orders, there
is no doubt that the Peruvians as a people had carried metallurgy to as
high a development as has been attained by any race ignorant of working
in iron. They had acquired great skill in the arts of the goldsmith, the
engraver, chaser, and modeller. Pottery was fashioned into many artistic
and fanciful forms, showing ingenuity and great versatility of fancy.
They excelled as engineers, architects, sculptors, weavers, and
agriculturists. Their public works display great skill, combined with
comprehensive aims of practical utility; and alone, among all the
nations of the New World, they had domesticated animals, and trained
them as beasts of burden. It is not, therefore, without reason that Dr.
Morton adds: “When we consider the institutions of the old Peruvians,
their comparatively advanced civilisation, their tombs and temples,
mountain roads and monolithic gateways, together with their knowledge of
certain ornamental arts, it is surprising to find that they possessed a
brain no larger than the Hottentot and New Hollander, and far below that
of the barbarous hordes of their own race. For, on measuring 155 crania,
nearly all derived from the sepulchres just mentioned, they give but 75
cubic inches (equivalent, after due deduction for membranes and fluids,
to a brain of 40.1 oz. av. in weight,) for the average bulk of the
brain. Of the whole number, only one attains the capacity of 101 cubic
inches, and the minimum sinks to 58, the smallest in the whole series of
641 measured crania. It is important further to remark that the sexes
are nearly equally represented, namely, eighty men and seventy-five
women.”
Other collections subsequently formed have largely added to our means of
testing the curious question thus raised of the apparent inverse ratio
of volume of brain to intellectual power and progressive civilisation
among the native races of the American continent. In 1866, Mr. E. G.
Squier presented to the Peabody Museum of American Archæology and
Ethnology at Harvard, a collection of seventy-five Peruvian skulls,
obtained by himself from various localities both on the coast and in the
interior. “The skulls from the interior represent the Aymara on Lake
Titicaca, as well as the Quichua, Cuzco, or Inca families; and the
skulls of every coast family from Tumbes to Atacama, or from Ecuador to
Chili.”[177] Subsequently the curator, the late Professor Jeffreys
Wyman, made this collection, along with two others, of skulls from the
mounds of Kentucky and Florida, the subject of careful comparative
measurements. The following are the results: The crania from Florida
were chiefly obtained from a burial place near an ancient Indian shell
mound of gigantic proportions, a few miles distant from Cedar Keys. They
are eighteen in number, and have a mean capacity of 1375.7 cubic
centimetres, or nearly 84 cubic inches. The skulls from the Kentucky
mounds, twenty-four in number, show a mean capacity of 1313 cubic
centimetres, 80.21 cubic inches, with a difference of 125 cubic
centimetres, or 7.61 cubic inches in favour of the males. Yet, small as
the Kentucky skulls are, they exceed the Peruvian ones. Keeping in view
the varied sources of the latter, Professor Wyman remarks: “Although the
crania from the several localities show some differences as regards
capacity, yet in most other respects they are alike.” And the numbers,
when viewed separately, are too few to attach much importance to
variations within so narrow a range. Nevertheless it is noteworthy that
the highest mean is that of the Aymaras of Lake Titicaca; and this
difference is considerably increased by measurements derived from
subsequent additions to the Harvard collection, received since the death
of Professor Wyman from the high valley of Lake Titicaca. In other
respects besides their marked superiority in size, the latter crania
differ from those of the Coast tribes, and confirm the earlier deduction
of an ethnical distinction between the more numerous race so abundantly
represented in the Coast cemeteries, and that which is chiefly
represented by crania brought from the interior. The numbers from the
several localities selected by Professor Wyman as fair average specimens
of the whole stand thus: six from burial towers, or chulpas, near Lake
Titicaca, 1292; five from Cajamaquilla, 1268.75; fourteen from Casma,
1254; four from Truxillo, 1236; four from Pachicamac, 1195; sixteen from
Amacavilca, 1176.2; and seven from Grand Chimu, 1094.28.
In 1872, the collection of Peruvian crania in the Peabody Museum was
augmented by a large addition from 330 skulls obtained by Professor
Agassiz, through the intervention of Mr. T. J. Hutchinson, British
Consul at Callao, in Peru. From those contributed to the Harvard Museum,
Dr. Wyman selected eleven as apparently the only ones unaffected by any
artificial compression or distortion, and therefore valuable as
illustrations of the normal shape of the Peruvian head. They are quite
symmetrical. The occiput, instead of being flattened or vertical, as in
the distorted crania, has the ordinary curves, and in some of them is
prominent. Two of them are marked by a low, retreating forehead; but in
all the others the forehead is moderately developed. As, moreover, the
larger half appear to be the skulls of females, this accounts for the
mean capacity falling below the Peruvian average. But they are all
small. The largest of them is only 1260 cubic centimetres, or less than
74 cubic inches; and the average capacity of ten of them is 1129 cubic
centimetres, or 69 cubic inches.
The collection, as a whole, differs from that of Mr. Squier, in having
been derived from the huacas, or ancient graves of one locality, that of
Ancon, near Callao. Professor Wyman stated as the result of his careful
study of them: “The average capacity obtained from the whole collection,
including those having the distorted as well as the natural shape,
varies but little from that of previous measurements,” including those
of Morton and Meigs, and his own results from the Squier collection.
Another collection of 150 ancient skulls, obtained by Mr. Hutchinson
during his residence in Peru, and presented to the Anthropological
Institute of London, has the additional value, like that of Squier, of
having been carefully selected from different localities, including
Santos, Ica, Ancon, Passamayo, and Cerro del Oro; and the same may be
said of those enumerated in the _Thesaurus Craniorum_ of Dr. Davis. We
have thus unusually ample materials for determining the cranial
characteristics of this remarkable people, and the results in every case
are the same. After a careful examination of the Peruvian skulls, in the
London anthropological collection, Professor Busk states his conclusions
thus: “The mean capacity of the larger skulls, which may be regarded as
males, appears, as far as I have gone, to be about 80 cubic inches,
equivalent to a brain of about 45 ounces, roughly estimated. This
capacity, and the measurements above cited, show that the crania
generally are of small size”; and he adds: “this is in accord with the
statements of all observers.”[178]
Dr. Davis has added to the valuable data included in his _Thesaurus
Craniorum_, a series of measurements of skeletons. Unfortunately that of
a male Quichua, procured by him in the form of a “Peruvian mummy,”
proved to be affected with carious disease about the last dorsal and
upper lumbar vertebræ; and consequently the length of the vertebral
column essential for comparison with the skeletons of other races, is
wanting; but the other measurements indicate in this example a stature
below the average, while the skull exceeds it. The average internal
capacity of eighteen Quichua male skulls, as given by Dr. Davis, is
seventy-three, whereas this is 78.5. That the ancient Peruvian skulls
are, with rare exceptions, of small size, is undoubted; and in view of
this it becomes a matter of some importance to determine whether this
was in any degree due to a correspondingly small stature. Obscure
references are found in the legendary history of Peru to a pigmy race.
Pedro de Cieza de Leon, whose travels have been translated by Mr.
Markham, refers to the first emigration of the Indians of Chincha to
that valley, “where they found many inhabitants, but all of such small
stature, that the tallest was barely two cubits high” (p. 260).
Garcilasso de la Vega repeats another tradition heard by himself in
Peru, of a race of giants who came by sea to the country, and were so
tall that the natives reached no higher than their knees. They lived by
rapine, and wasted the whole country till they were destroyed by fire
from heaven. Traditions of this class may possibly point to the
existence of an aboriginal race of small stature. The aborigines of
Guatemala, Salvador, and Nicaragua, are described as below the middle
size (Bancroft, vol. i. p. 688); and Von Tchudi divides the wild Indians
of Peru into the Iscuchanos, the natives of the highlands, a tall, slim,
vigorous race, with the head proportionally large and the forehead low;
and those of the hot lowlands, a smaller race, lank, but broad
shouldered, with a broad face and small round chin. There appear,
therefore, to be traces of one or more aboriginal races of small
stature. But Dr. Morton says expressly of the Peruvians: “Our knowledge
of their physical appearance is derived solely from their tombs. In
stature they appear not to have been in any respect remarkable, nor to
have differed from the cognate nations except in the conformation of the
head, which is small, greatly elongated, narrow its whole length, with a
very retreating forehead, and possessing more symmetry than is usual in
skulls of the American race.” Some of the characteristics here referred
to are, in part at least, the result of artificial modifications; but
the small head appears to be an indisputable characteristic of the most
numerous ancient people of Peru.
It may not unreasonably excite surprise that Dr. Morton should have
adduced results apparently pointing to the conclusion that civilisation
had progressed among the native races of the American continent in an
inverse ratio to the volume of brain; and yet passed it over with such
slight comment. The only hint at a recognition of the difficulty is
where, as he draws his work to a close, he indicates his observation of
a greater anterior and coronal development in the smaller Peruvian
brain. “It is curious,” he says, “to observe that the barbarous nations
possess a larger brain by 5½ cubic inches than the Toltecans; while, on
the other hand, the Toltecans possess a greater relative capacity of the
anterior chamber of the skull in the proportion of 42.3 to 41.8. Again,
the coronal region, though absolutely greater in the barbarous tribes,
is rather larger in proportion in the demi-civilised tribes.”[179] But
Dr. Morton also noted that the heads of nine Peruvian children in his
possession “appear to be nearly if not quite as large as those of
children of other nations at the same age”;[180] so that he seemed to
recognise something equivalent to an arrested cerebral development
accompanying the intellectual activity of this remarkable people at some
later stage, yet without apparently affecting their mental power. But it
was characteristic of this minute and painstaking observer to accumulate
and set forth his results, unaffected by any apparent difficulties or
inconsistencies which they might seem to involve.