234 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 1 10 



length of the Tungus, resulting in their dolichocephaly, and the 

 greater facial angle. 



A closely comparable type was found by G. F. Debets in the Neo- 

 lithic sites of the Baikal area.^° This is the so-called Neolithic "Type 

 A" which almost coincides with the contemporary Tungus type of this 

 region. The similarity to the Aleuts of the "Type A" skulls includes 

 also the pentagonal form of the skull, of the lower border of the 

 apertura pyriformis, and of the fossa prenasalis. 



The main dififerences between these Neolithic and Aleut crania are 

 the same as between the latter and the Tungus, the greater head length 

 resulting in the accentuated degree of dolichocephaly of the Neolithic 

 crania. 



Trofimova compared the female Aleut skulls with six Asiatic 

 groups. 



Conclusions 



The Aleut series of crania is of an unusually homogeneous character, 

 disrupted only by the series of five skulls with straight foreheads. 



Tokareva omits them on the basis of archeological evidence, con- 

 cluding that they were very late arrivals (white color of crania present 

 only in the higher strata at Atka Island). 



A homogeneity of the main series then testifies to the absence of 

 aHen admixtures in the population of the Aleutian Islands during 

 pre-Russian periods. 



Tokareva quotes lArkho ^^ and also Dubinin and Romashek ^^ in 

 support of the role of isolation as a factor "conditioning the develop- 

 ment of the racial type of the Aleuts along a specific path, and stimu- 

 lating the emergence of their distinguishing somatic characteristics," 



Tokareva, while disagreeing both with the theory of the origin 

 of Aleuts through mestization as proposed by Hrdlicka and with that 

 of Montandon about their kinship to the Giliaks, believes that the 

 Neolithic type is still preserved among the Aleuts, having been 

 modified as a direct result of island isolation. 



The origin of the brachycephaly is due to genetic-automatic 

 processes. 



^^ See also Hrdlicka's "Crania of Siberia." 



s'' lArkho, A. I., Ocherednye zadachi sovetskogo rasovedeniia [The problems 

 before Soviet race science]. AZH, No. 3, 1934. 



^8 Dubinin and Romashek, Geneticheskoe stroenie vida i ego evoliutsiia [The 

 genetic structure of the species and its evolution]. Biologicheskii Zhurnal, Nos. 

 5-6, 1932. 



