HEAD-FORM AND RACE-TYPE

Evening Post, Volume CXIX, Issue 110, 11 May 1935, Page 25

HEAD-FORM AND RACE-TYPE

A paper on "Head-form and racetpye," by Professor H. J. Fleure and Mr. Elwyn Davies, was read recently at a meeting of the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society by Professor Fleure.

The paper, states the "Manchester Guardian," showed that among various groups of mankind living in remote areas and of lowly organisation, notably the Australians, the Greenland Eskimos, and the Koranas, and related people of South Africa, an extremely long head is highly characteristic. With it are often associated a number of features such as strong jaws and jaw muscles, broad cheek-bones, and rather ridged skull. These head-forms were in some ways much like the head-forms found among many, but not all, early representatives of our race, which had been studied from caves in Prance and in various other parts of the world. The paper then drew attention ,to the fact that among the pygmies of the African equatorial forests and those of South-east Asia the heads are small and rather broad, with proportions not unlike those found in the extinct types of man and the majority of the higher apes, always provided that in estimating the length of the skull in these latter cases the huge brow ridges were not included.

The paper did not draw inferences concerning the pygmies from these facts, but suggested that probably the differences of form of the skull in some cases had important historical mean-

ings, and that the arithmetical divisions adopted in many books on the subject might with advantage be modified to a certain extent.

The most marked feature of homo sapiens, said Professor Fleure, was the size of his brain, and it seemed highly probable that. an increase in size of the brain occurred at an early stage in his evolution. If'so, it might well have happened that this increase in size was largely an increase in length, because the skull on the two sides was blanketed by strong muscles. It was well known, especially from Professor Brash's researches, that the skulls, at any. rate of females and therefore probably of man also, moulded themselves in remarkable ways to the brain within.

Professor Fleure said that in one remote district of Great Britain, in the district about Plynlimon, he had found that, extremely long heads were a marked feature of the people. That sort of head was extremely rare' in the rest of the country. He expected to find other "islets" of these longl heads here and there in other parts of the country, but so far he had not identified any such "islet." ' In the course of his observations Professor Fleure mentioned that he had often shown a cast of the Cromagnon skull to people, who had exclaimed upon the weakness of the jaw. "It is not such a strong jaw," said the speaker, "but it is a very strong chin—a chin almost like that of the Chancellor of the University; I mean the Earl of Crawford, —a very remarkable chin."