HUMAN CEAMA /A' QCEENSLAND MUSEUM.— LONGMAN. 3 



l)rior to dissection by using No. S shot. This specimen is one of a series of 

 nucroeuphalic crania from Wright's Creek, North Queensland, collected by Mr. 

 J. Campbell. Several of the teeth have Ijeen lost po^'^ mortem, and those remain- 

 ing in the moiety not illustrated are greatly decayed. lu Plate IV the third 

 molar is in place but unworn. The cranium has a fronto-squamous articulation 

 on each side. The average thickness of the cranial wall is 7 mm. The maximum 

 length is 173 ; the parietal breadth is 117 ; and the basi-bregmatie height 125-5. 

 Although superciliary ridges are slightly developed and muscular prominences 

 are present to a degree unusual in a female skull, it has been registered as such 

 because the male crania from the same district are very strongly marked in 

 their sexual characteristics. 



Two crania (E. 800 and N.G.E. 170) from the Fly River district, Papua, 

 have been .selected to illustrate in our galleries typical dolichocephalic and 

 brachycephalie skulls, the respective indices being 74-6 and 86. As long ago as 

 1882, Miklonho-JMaclay recorded the wide range of a well-marked brachycephalie 

 population in Melanesia.^ Turner actually quotes the Fly River district as a 

 locality where many races or varieties have come into contact.* Seligmann has 

 also recorded brachycephalie crania ("average 82, min. 79, max. 84") from 

 Orangerie Bay.* We have four skulls from the Fly River district with a 

 cephalic index of over 80. Three (and a fourth which is also credited to the 

 Fly River but was not clearly labelled) come within the dolichocephalic range, 

 whilst four are mesaticephalic. The broad skulls are markedly postero- 

 brachycephalic, the maximum breadth being found across the j)arietal eminences, 

 whilst in the frontal region they are comparatively narrow. In the 

 dolichocephalic specimens the great length of the parietals is the outstanding 

 feature. 



These divergent crania are probably associated with marked other 

 differences, and it is interesting to note that His Excellency the Hon. J. W. P. 

 ilurray, Lieutenant-Governor of Papua, has recorded the existence on the Fly 

 River of individuals "who, if they may be taken as a fair type of their tribe, 

 might possibly be clas.sified as pygmies, or, more probably, as a mixed race 

 descended from pygmies and people of ordinary stature." ("Man," ilarch, 

 1918, p. 43.) 



Opportunity is taken to illustrate (Plate IV, fig. 2) an immature cranium 

 (N.G.E. 17/179) from the Fly River, Papua, which has a large oval bregmatic 

 bone, or os fronto-parietale, 58 mm. in length and 46 mm. wide. This evidently 

 was formed from a separate ossification in the frontal fontanelle in embryonic 

 life. The same specimen has also several large wormian bones in the lambdoid 

 region. The basilar suture is open, and the thii-d molars are just appearing 

 through the alveolar margins. On each side a frontal process from the temporal 



3 Pioc. Linn. Soc. N.S.W., vi, p. 172. 



■' Challenger Reports, x, p. 90. 



^ Melanesians of British New Guinea, 1910, p. 24. 



