Z PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL MUSEUM voi.w 



are divided roughly into the Rio Grande Pueblos and Zuni in New 

 Mexico, and the Hopi in Arizona. 



A very large proportion of the old Pueblo territory, particularly in 

 Arizona, contains to-day nothing but ruins. These numerous ruins 

 with their burial grounds, which contain much of interest to arche- 

 ology, have within the last 50 years been subjected to much excava- 

 tion. In the course of these excavations many skeletal remains have 

 been recovered. Through bad state of preservation, or inattention, 

 most of such remains have been lost; but important collections have 

 also been saved, especially by the Hemenway, the Hyde, the Kidder 

 Peabody Museum, Cambridge, and the Smithsonian expeditions. 

 These collections are preserved in the Peabody Museum, the American 

 Museum of Natural History, and the United States National 

 Museum. Those in the Peabody Museum, proceeding essentially 

 from the Kidder excavations at Jemez, are being studied by E. A. 

 Hooton. Those in the American Museum comprise a very valuable 

 series of the southern Utah cave dwellers or basket people collected by 

 the Wetherill brothers and Frederick J. Hyde, jr. ; these remains have 

 been examined by the writer, who between 1898 and 1903 was in 

 charge of the physical anthropology of the Hyde expeditions and the 

 instructive data are included in this catalogue. The collections at the 

 United States National Museum comprise those by Gushing, Fewkes, 

 Hough, Hodge, Judd, and others, and form the body of the material 

 reported on in this number. 



The Pueblo skull is, in general, among the most difficult of study. 

 It is frequently in a poor condition of preservation. The older collec- 

 tions in particular are unsatisfactory in this respect. But the main 

 handicap is artificial deformation. Such deformation was universal 

 in the Pueblo region, though not occurring everywhere with the same 

 frequency or intensity. It consisted everywhere of an occipital com- 

 pression. Such compression was produced by the child lying bound 

 up in a cradleboard with its head reposing on a resistant, sweet- 

 smelling, grass-filled cushion. It would seem that in some cases the 

 deformation must have been aided in some way, but there is no evi- 

 dence of any frontal compress or bandages. At all events the defor- 

 mation which resulted in a higher forehead and higher and broader 

 head, must certainly have been favored. The practice exists to this 

 day among the Pueblos, and they are weD aware of the cause and 

 effect. 



These with other deformations are the bane of American craniology. 

 They distort the skull so that its natural form is lost or obscured, 

 and they not seldom affect even the base and the face. Mathemat- 

 ical methods for discounting such deformations do not inspire due 

 confidence. Where every skull is deformed we are helpless. Where 

 but one or two of a fair series of skulls show deformation, a strong 



