DIXON— A NEW THEORY OF POLYNESIAN ORIGINS. 263 



Brachy cephalic, Hypsicephalic and Platyrrhine ; or Mesoceplialic, 

 Orthocephalic and Leptorrhine, etc. The assumption was then 

 made (and it was in the beginning a pure assumption) that those 

 groups whose indices were all extremes either at one end or the 

 other of their several series, constituted primitive or fundamental 

 types ; while those having one or more of their indices medial in 

 value, were the results of the crossing or blending of the funda- 

 mental types. Thus the Dolichocephalic, Hypsicephalic, Platyrrhine 

 group was a fundamental or primitive one, for all three of the in- 

 dices correlated lay at one extreme or the other of their series ; while 

 the Mesocephalic, Orthocephalic, Mesorrhine group (to take the 

 most pronounced example) would be regarded as a blend or deriva- 

 tive type, since its indices in every case, lay half way between the 

 extremes of their series. 



The relative proportions of these various fundamental and de- 

 rived or blended types were then calculated for all of the different 

 island groups in Polynesia — and at once results of much interest 

 became apparent. For in one portion of Polynesia one fundamental 

 type was seen to be dominant, while in another a different one 

 assumed the leading place, and the blends or derived types in each 

 area were found to be clearly explicable as resulting from the fusion 

 of just those fundamental types which were actually present, or 

 whose former presence could logically be assumed. The complexity 

 of the Polynesian population was thus confirmed, but in place of 

 the previous confusion, a rather remarkable degree of order was 

 found to exist, while at the same time the causes of the complexity 

 were revealed in the fusion of the fundamental types present in 

 varying proportions in different parts of the Polynesian area. 

 When, moreover, the same methods of analysis were applied to the 

 data from Melanesia, Micronesia, Australia and Indonesia, and 

 carried on into the eastern portion of the Asiatic continent, it was 

 found that these same fundamental types and their derivatives and 

 no others, made up the population of the vast majority of the popu- 

 lation of this whole great area, although the different elements were 

 combined in very different proportions in the various parts of the 

 field. By viewing the problem whole in this way, the conviction 



