HUMAN SKULLS FROM GAZELLE 

 PENINSULA. 



Thirty years ago "Crania Ethnica" made its appearance. 

 Referring to the inhabitants of New Britain, now called Neu 

 Pommern, de Quatrefages and Hamy declared that: "nothing 

 is known of their crania of which there is not a single example 

 in the scientific collections." 1 Neu Pommern is the first large 

 island directly east of German New Guinea; Gazelle Peninsula 

 is the eastern end of Neu Pommern. 



Large collections of crania have been made since then, but 

 they have been only partially described; so that our knowledge 

 of Neu Pommern craniology is still meager. In 1899 learning 

 of a series of twenty-four skulls from Gazelle Peninsula, the 

 property of the University Museum, I obtained permission to 

 examine them. The study which I now present was begun 

 at that time and finished in the summer of 1913. 



The present inhabitants of Melanesia are of mixed blood; 

 Negrito, Papuan, and Dravidian being the chief elements. 

 The several islands are not uniformly affected by intermixture. 

 Thus according to Turner, 2 two distinct types of skull have 

 been met with in New Guinea a brachycephalic in which 

 the breadth of the cranium as a rule exceeds the height; and 

 a dolichocephalic in which the height usually exceeds the 

 breadth. I have yet to hear of a brachycephalic type existing 

 in Gazelle Peninsula. The crania under consideration cer- 

 tainly do not reveal it. They are not only all dolichocephalic, 

 but with a single exception (11613 and perhaps 11612), are 

 also remarkably homogeneous in character. 



1 Text, p. 276. 



2 Challenger report. 



(3) 



