Professor W J MCGEE,
_Bureau of American Ethnology, Washington, D. C._
DEAR SIR: The skull which you submitted to me for examination shows the
following:
The skull is that of a male between 40 and 50 years of age. The facial
parts and a portion of the left temporal bone are wanting; otherwise
the specimen shows nothing pathologic. There are signs that the skull
belonged to a very muscular individual. The occipital depressions,
ridges, and protuberance are very marked, and the temporal ridges
approach to within 1.7 cm. on the left and 2.3 cm. on the right of the
sagittal suture. The whole skull is rather heavy and massive; thickness
of parietal bones 4-8 mm.
The shape of the skull is unusual. The frontal region is rather broad
(frontal diameter, minimum, 9.7; frontal diameter, maximum, 12.1 cm.),
but quite flat and sloping. Frontal ridges wanting (broken away).
The sagittal region is elevated into a crest which begins 4cm.
posteriorly from the bregma, is most marked at the vertex, and proceeds
in two tapering diverging crura to the lambdoid suture. The whole
vertex region is considerably elevated and forms a blunt cone, which is
particularly noticeable when the skull is viewed from the side.
The temporo-parietal regions are moderately convex and expanded
anteriorly, but become flattened and gradually narrow toward the
parietal bosses. The parietal bones measure each 11 cm. along the
coronal, but only 8.8 cm. along the lambdoid suture. The gradual
tapering of the parietal regions from their middle backward continues
on the occipital bone up to the inion, and gives the norma verticalis
of the skull a peculiar appearance.
The occipital region, as a whole, does not protrude much, as in true
dolichocephals, but it shows a prominent broad crest, formed by the two
superior semicircular lines and the region between them. The extreme
occipital protuberance is pronounced and shows signs of strong muscular
attachments. A small distance above the foramen magnum, on each side
of the median line, is a very marked depression, surmounted by a dull
ridge.
Of the mastoids, the right has been broken off and the left is damaged,
but they do not seem to have been of extraordinary size.
The base of the skull is fairly well preserved and shows the following
characters: The basilar process and the petrous portions of the
temporal bones are more massive than usual. The glenoid fossæ are broad
and of fair depth. The styloids are quite diminutive (right 0.7, left
0.5 cm. long). The foramen magnum is hexagonal in outline; it is 4.4
cm. long, 3.4 cm. wide; its plane is inclined backwards in such a way
that its antero-posterior diameter prolonged would touch about the
lower borders of the nasal aperture.
The cranial cavity can be well inspected through the opening caused
by injury. The internal surface of the frontal bone shows but very
few traces of brain impressions. There are several large impressions
on each parietal bone, and deep, though rather small, fossæ for the
extremities of the occipital lobes on the occipital bone. The superior
border of the dorsum sellæ shows in the middle a rounded notch about 3
mm. deep.
The serration of the sutures is throughout very simple.
_Measures_—The glabello-occipital length and maximum width of the
skull can not be accurately determined on account of injuries to
the bones. They amount, respectively, to about 18.8 and 14 cm.,
giving the cephalic index of about 74.4 (moderate dolichocephaly).
The basion-bregma height is 14.1 cm.; basion-vertex, 14.8 cm.;
basion-obelion, 13.0 cm.; basion-lambda, 12.2 cm. The two more anterior
of these measures characterize the skull as a rather high one. The two
more posterior measures show the rapid downward slope of the posterior
half of the sagittal region. The maximum circumference of the skull
(above the ridges) is 52 cm.
The bregma-lambda arc measures 13.3, the lambda-opisthion arc 12.2 cm.
Diameter between the asterions=10.7 cm.
If the skull under examination is considered from a purely evolutionary
standpoint, it must be pronounced to be in many points inferior to
the average white and even to the majority of Indian crania. An
anthropological identification of the specimen is difficult, for
the reason that we are still very imperfectly acquainted with the
craniology of the peoples of southwestern United States and northern
Mexico. From what we know of the crania of the Pima, and the extinct
Santa Barbara, Santa Catalina, etc., Californians, it is possible to
say that the individual whose skull is here reported upon may have
belonged to a people physically related to either of these groups. The
skull is very distinct from that of an Apache. The female Seri cranium
examined by me before does not show certain of the peculiarities of
this specimen; nevertheless it is very possible that both crania
belonged to individuals of the same tribe.