The Eskimo jaw is generally stout. Barring rare exceptions there
is nothing slender about it. The body, moreover, is frequently
strengthened by more or less marked overgrowths of bone lingually below
the alveoli and above the mylohyoid ridge. These neoformations will be
discussed later.
The strength of the mandible may be measured directly in various
locations on the body. Due to the peculiar build of the body, however,
and especially to its variations, these measurements are by no means
simple and wholly satisfactory. It is hardly necessary in this
connection to review the various attempted methods, none of which
has become standardized. As a result of experience I prefer since
many years to measure the thickness of the body of the jaw at the
second molars, and that in such a way that either the molars, if the
measurement is taken from above, or the lower border of the jaw if
it is taken from below, lies midway between the two branches of the
sliding calipers with which the measurement is taken. The two methods
(from above or below) give results that are nearly alike. In some cases
the one and in others the other is the easier, but wherever the teeth
are lost the measurement from below is perhaps preferable. The records
obtained on the lower jaws of the western Eskimo and other racial
groups are given in the next table.
THICKNESS OF THE BODY OF THE LOWER JAW AT THE SECOND MOLARS IN THE
WESTERN ESKIMO AND OTHER GROUPS
----------------------------------+--------------+-------------+---------
| Male | Female | Female
+--------------+-------------+versus
|Right |Left |Right |Left | male
| side | side | side | side |(M = 100)
----------------------------------+--------------+-------------+---------
| (240) | (243) |
| | |
Western Eskimo millimeters|16.2 16.3|15.1 15.1|_92.9_
| | |
| (29) | (28) |
| | |
Florida Indians do | 16.6 | 15.5 |_93.4_
| | |
| (21) | (16) |
| | |
Louisiana Indians do | 16.3 | 15.3 |_93.9_
| | |
| (58) | (47) |
| | |
Arkansas Indians do | 15.2 | 14.7 |_96.7_
| | |
| (40) | (22) |
| | |
Kentucky Indians do | 14.7 | 14.2 |_96.6_
| | |
| (50) | (20) |
| | |
American whites (misc.) do | 14.5 | 12.8 |_88.3_
----------------------------------+--------------+-------------+---------
The figures show that the Eskimo jaw is very stout. It is exceeded
in thickness only by the jaws of Florida, which in general are the
thickest in America, and in males is about equaled, in females very
slightly exceeded by those of the prehistoric Indians of Louisiana,
who belong to the same Gulf type with the Indians of Florida. The
old Arkansas Indians, though closely related to those of Louisiana,
show a very perceptibly more slender jaw, particularly in the males;
while in an old Kentucky tribe (Green River, C. B. Moore, collector)
the jaws are still less strong. The lower jaws of the American whites
(dissecting-room material) are slightly less stout than even those of
the Indians of Kentucky in the males, and much less so in the females.
The interesting sex differences are shown well in the last column of
the above table.