244 Annals of the South African Museum. 



among them the racial elements from which the Hottentots are 

 derived. The skulls from the northern part of German South-West 

 Africa and the south of Portuguese territory in Angola are more 

 easily distinguished from the Bushmen-Hottentots, and resemble 

 those of the Eastern Bantu group. 



It has been suggested by von Luschan and others on linguistic 

 grounds that the Hottentots are related to the Hamitic peoples of 

 North-Eastern Africa. To inquire into this is a matter of some 

 importance, but of great difficulty. In the first place it has to be 

 determined who are the Hamites — a question as yet unanswered. 

 The tribes of Abyssinia and SomaHland are possibly largely Hamitic, 

 but no collections of skulls from these areas appear to be available. 

 The Egyptians, ancient and modern, and the Soudanese of the Nile 

 Valley, no doubt present a large Hamitic element. Of the osteo- 

 logical features of the latter little is known. Of the former there 

 are large collections from all periods, even as far back as predynastic 

 times, which can only be approximately dated. Are these to be 

 looked upon as representative of the Hamites? This is quite 

 uncertain ; they undoubtedly contain a large mixture of the 

 JSlediterranean man. The relationships of the early, yet still sur- 

 viving, inhabitants of the South-Eastern Mediterranean to the 

 Hamitic stock are quite unknown, so that it may be a gross error 

 to select them as examples of Hamites. Arthur Thomson and 

 Randall Maclver, in a recent publication, claim to have disentangled 

 a Negroid element from among the early inhabitants of the Thebaid. 

 It is disputed whether the type in question represented a separate 

 race element or only one extreme of the variation of a fairly uniform 

 population, and if the type does represent a separate element it is 

 not clear whether it should be looked upon as Hamitic or Negro. 

 The only other people differing from the surrounding Negro tribes, 

 and who may in their distant affinities be Hamitic, are the Masai. 

 From this group only six male skulls are available, so that they can 

 be but sparingly employed for comparison. 



The Egyptian skulls chosen for comparison were from the pre- 

 dynastic period, and are compared in two series — one containing all 

 the skulls, the other only those of the Negroid type. The average 

 and deviations have been calculated from the tables in the appendix 

 to Thomson and Maclver's work. The following table gives the ratio 

 between the differences in the averages of the contrasted groups and 



the value derived from the formula — M, — M, : \/ vr'^ + ^'^ 



