116 ANTIQUITIES IN TENNESSEE. 



want of symmetry throughout the entire cranium, the different lines along which 

 the compressing force was exerted. When these crania are laid on the occipital 

 bone, they rest stably as upon a broad flat base. If the flattening has been greater 

 on one side than on the other, the cranium will turn from the perpendicular and rest 

 upon the flat portion of the occiput. The increase in the number of Wormian 

 bones along the occipito-parietal sutures does not appear to be the result of pressure, 

 because these are more numerous and larger in crania which exhibit little or no 

 effect from pressure. The frequent occurrence of these intercalated bones appears 

 to characterize the crania of the stone-grave race of Tennessee as well as those of 

 the Inca Peruvians. 



In one of the crania of the stone-grave race, in which the flattening of the occiput 

 was so great as to render the parietal diameter greater by four-tenths of an inch 

 than the longitudinal diameter, the pressure was greater upon the right side of the 

 head, giving the cranium a deformed and one-sided shape, in addition to the great 

 contraction of the antero-posterior diameter, and the marked increase of the lateral 

 or parietal diameter. Thus the antero-posterior diameter of the right side of the 

 skull, measured from a point just above the superciliary ridge to a point directly 

 across on the occiput, is 4.7 inches, and on the left side 5.4 inches. In another 

 cranium, the left portion of the occipital bone, near its junction with the left 

 parietal bone, being decidedly flattened, as well as the inferior posterior angle of 

 the left parietal bone, the right parietal prominence was more marked, and thrown 

 further back than the left, which had been pushed forwards, as it were, by the 

 effects of pressure. In still another cranium (which we select merely as a repre- 

 sentative example of the efiects of pressure upon the shape of the entire skull, 

 and even upon the face and lower maxilla), the back of the skull is more flattened 

 upon the left side than upon the right. This is attended by a greater prominence 

 of the left side of the forehead, while the parietal protuberance is more marked, 

 and situated further back on the right side. In fact, as we have endeavored to 

 demonstrate by actual examples, the effect of this unequal pressure during infancy 

 is to destroy the symmetry of the entire cranium ; to alter the position of the 

 foramen magnum, and the form and position of the atlas and superior cervical 

 vertebrse ; to tlnow the articulations of the lower maxilla with the cranium out of 

 a riglit line ; and thus to render one side of the face more prominent than the other, 

 liven the symmetry of the lower jaw is destroyed by this pressure, each ramus 

 having a dift'erent angle and a different length. 



Daubenton more tlian a century ago called attention to the fact, that the foramen 

 magnum is situated further back in apes than in man ; and Soemmering asserted that 

 such is the case with the Negro as compared with white races. But Prichard, after 

 an examination of " many negro skulls," disproved the statement of Soemmering, 

 which had been repeated by many writers, and demonstrated that the foramen in the 

 negro skull corresponds in position with that of the white races, viz. : exactly behind 

 tlie middle of the antero-posterior' diameter of the basis cranii. Professor Jeffries 

 Wyman,^ in some recent determinations of the position of the foramen magnum with 



' Observations on Crania, etc., Boston, 18G8, pp. 11-14 



