52 SPITZKA— PRELIMINARY NOTE ON THE BRAINS OF [April 23, 



A. R. S. Anderson (M. B. Cantab.) I. M.S., senior medical officer at 

 Port Blair, Andamans. To all these I desire to acknowledge here- 

 with my thanks. 



The Andaman Archipelago is a group of densely wooded islands 

 about 1,760 square miles in area, situated in the Bay of Bengal about 

 180 miles southwest of Cape Negrais, Burma, and about 60 miles 

 distant from the more southerly Nicobar Islands. The inhabitants 

 have been considered a most primitive and savage race. Accounts 

 of their cannibalism are found in the ancient Chinese writings and 

 the Andamanese are probably referred to by Ptolemy as the " anthro- 

 pophagi." Port Blair is a convict settlement and the convicts are 

 deterred from making efforts to escape by their fear of the natives. 

 From the observations of E. H. Man, who, more than any other, 

 has made the race a study, it appears that the Andamanese are 

 Negritos and not Papuans. They are well made and well propor- 

 tioned. Their skulls are brachycephalic. Their lips are not thick, 

 their profiles are good and they have no peculiar odor like that which 

 is found in the x\frican race. Their extremities are small, but the 

 heel projects slightly to the rear. The average height of the men 

 is 149 cm., of the women 140 cm. The average weight of the men 

 is 98 and 93 pounds respectively. The color of the Andamanese is 

 generally dark bronze or copper color ; often the color of soot and 

 even quite black. The hair is woolly, but its cross-section is not 

 always elliptical. In a letter to the Smithsonian Institution, Dr. 

 Abbott says of them : " They are a happy, merry, little people, infan- 

 tile both in looks and behavior. Unfortunately they are dying out. 

 Contact with civilization is making the women barren and there are 

 comparatively few children." 



Mr. Man thinks that if has been pretty well demonstrated that 

 these Negritos in the Andaman Archipelago, so unlike any of their 

 immediate neighbors, are aborigines and have inhabited the group 

 from prehistoric times. The population in 1901, Dr. Anderson 

 writes me, was 2,200, including women and children. 



The Andamanese wear no clothing ; its place is taken in a measure 

 by necklaces, circlets for the head, garters, bracelets and belts. 

 They live in thatched huts and sleep on mats. Stones are used as 

 anvil and hammer, clam shells as knives. They fashion old barrel 



