HRDLICKA] SKELETAL REMAINS 25 



COMPARISONS 



A study of the Calaveras skull as compared with other crania, 

 particularly with those of California Indians, has been made by 

 Dr. Jeffreys Wyman and Dr. George A. Dorsey. Doctor AVy man s 

 conclusions are that (/ 



(1) The skull presents no signs of having belonged to an inferior race. In 

 its breadth it agrees with the other crania from California, except those of the 

 Diggers, but surpasses them in the other particulars in which comparisons have 

 been made. This is especially obvious in the greater prominence of the fore 

 head and the capacity of its chamber. (2) In so far as it differs in dimensions 

 from the other crania from California, it approaches the Esquimaux. 



In this report there are two points to which exception must be 

 taken. The skull lacks both parietals and one whole temporal ; there 

 fore a measurement of its breadth (given by Wyman as 15 cm.) 

 is impossible, and even an approximation to it must remain uncertain ; 

 and there is absolutely nothing about the specimen which approaches 

 the high and narrow-nosed, broad and flat-faced, and narrow, keel- 

 vaulted Eskimo. Doctor Dorsey s account 6 is more circumstantial, 

 but unfortunately is based on a comparison of the Calaveras skull as 

 known from Whitney s account and measurements, including the 

 slightly misleading illustrations, and not from the specimen itself, 

 with a skull of a Digger Indian from Calaveras county. Doctor 

 Dorsey recognizes the skull as that of a male, and in summarizing 

 states that 



While the comparison of an actual skull with the drawings of a fragment 

 of another must be unsatisfactory, yet the conclusion is necessary that the 

 two skulls have the same, general features and may easily be pronounced of 

 one and the same type. 



The National Museum collection includes two crania and some 

 fragments of skulls from caves in Calaveras county, collected and 

 donated in 1857 by J. S. Hittell, of San Francisco. All these speci 

 mens had, and most of them still retain, inside and outside, a coating 

 of grayish calcareous, stalagmitic deposit, much like that which 

 partially covers the Calaveras skull ; in fact, on fracture, the deposit 

 in the two cases, so far as the unaided eye can perceive, is identical in 

 character. Xone of the cave skulls or fragments show any adhesion 

 of gravel. Both the entire specimens are male adult skulls, but one 

 (cat. no. 225171) does not appear entirely normal, and its orbits are 

 affected in form and size by very heavy supraorbital ridges, so that 

 only one of the specimens (cat. no. 225172) appears fit for comparison 

 with the Calaveras skull. It is a mesocephalic cranium (cephalic 

 index 75.5) of moderate height (basion-bregma 13. G cm.) and general 

 good development ; it belonged to a person of about fifty-five years of 



a J. D. Whitney, Auriferous Gravels of the Sierra Nevada, 273. Cambridge, Mass., 1879. 

 &quot; In William IJ. Ilolmes s Review of the Evidence relating to Auriferous Gravel Man in 

 California, Smithsonian Report for 1899, 4G5-466, Washington, 1901. 



