THE ORICm AND ANTIQUITY OF THE ESKIMO — COLLINS 441 



by lack of full information on the physical type of the prehistoric 

 Siberian peoples around Lake Baikal who, on the basis of culture, ap- 

 pear to have been in part, at least, ancestral to the Eskimo. 



On the other hand, we do have skeletal material from prehistoric 

 Birnirk, Thule, Punuk, and Old Bering Sea sites, and there are clues 

 of possible significance in Eurasia, to which we will refer later. 

 Though the present evidence affords no conclusive answer to the prob- 

 lem of the Eskimo race type, we have at any rate advanced beyond 

 tlie point where theories have to be erected on the basis of small series 

 of measurements on the living or on collections of undated skeletal 

 material. 



In its most characteristic form the Eskimo skull exhibits a combi- 

 nation of features that makes it one of the most distinctive and easily 

 recognized of all human types. The vault is extremely long, narrow, 

 and high, with a ridgelike elevation — the sagittal crest — extending 

 along the top from front to back. The forehead is somewhat narrow 

 and sloping, and there is a marked protuberance of the occipital re- 

 gion. The face is high and broad, and, what is most unusual, broader 

 than the skull itself. The cheek bones are very prominent and the 

 orbits are high. In contrast to the massiveness of the face as a Avhole, 

 the nose is extremely narrow and the brow ridges only slightly de- 

 veloped. The nasal depression is shallow and the nasal bones are 

 very narrow, usually having a "pinched-up" appearance. The Eskimo 

 jaw is large and heavy, the upper part, or ascending ramus, being 

 very wide and having an outward flare at the back which gives the 

 face its characteristic squarish shape. Another distinguishing fea- 

 ture of the Eskimo skull is the unusual thickness of the tympanic 

 plate, the bony ledge bordering the ear opening. Bony swellings or 

 overgrowths on the lower and upper jaws and palate, known respec- 

 tively as mandibular, maxillary, and palatine tori, also occur more 

 frequently among the Eskimo than any other people. It is suggested 

 here that these features, wdiich are especially characteristic of the 

 Eskimo — the "pinched-up" nasal bones, thickened tympanic plate, 

 and mandibular and palatine tori — may be of equal if not greater 

 significance genetically than purely metrical features such as head 

 length, head breadth, etc. 



The specialized type of skull just described — long, narrow, high — 

 is not universal among the Eskimos, though it predominates in parts 

 of West and East Greenland, the Mackenzie Delta, and in parts of 

 northern Alaska. We know that the type is one of considerable 

 antiquity because the skulls from the old Birnirk sites around Point 

 Barrow already exhibit it. Of the three Old Bering Sea skulls that 

 have been foimd, two conform to this type, while the third is meso- 

 cranic, or of medium length. 



