5'6 



NATURE 



[December i6, 1920 



Anthropology at the British Association. 



ON the whole, the proct-edings of Section H (Anthro- 

 pology) at the Cardiff meeting may be counted 

 as successful. The number of papers presented was 

 fewer than usual — several contributors were obliged 

 to withdraw at the last moment — nor did they all offer 

 the opportunity for discussion which normally has 

 been a prominent feature in this Section. There were, 

 however, a number of communications of importance, 

 and the attendances were, good, notwithstanding the 

 comparatively small number of members at the 

 meeting. 



Turning to the consideration of the chief com- 

 munications in detail, attention may be directed to 

 Prof. F. G. Parsons's paper entitled "The Modern 

 Londoner and the Long Barrow Man," which was 

 mainly a criticism of conclusions arrived at by the 

 president of the Section (Prof. Pearson) and the late 

 Dr. Macdonell. In a paper published some years 

 ago the latter had given it as his view that the modern 

 Londoner approximated to the type of the Long 

 Barrow man. Prof. Parsons had examined skulls of 

 Londoners of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, 

 the RoUeston and Thurnham Long Barrow skulls, and 

 numerous .Anglo-Saxon and Mid-European skulls. 

 .As a result he maintained that when the modern 

 Londoner departs from the Anglo-Saxon type it is in 

 the direction of the Alpine folk rather than in that of 

 the Long Barrow folk. An interesting fact which had 

 emerged in the course of the investigation was that 

 broad-headedness appeared to be on the increase in 

 the modern population. 



Prof. H. J. Fleure summarised the results of his 

 investigation of the Welsh physical type. He finds 

 that there are nine distinct physical types in Wales, 

 and that, generally speaking, the Welsh people show 

 more long-headedness and more dark pigment and 

 are of shorter stature than the English, but that both 

 are a complex mingling of different breeds. 



A paper of great importance in the elucidation of 

 problems of the early ethnology of the Mediterranean 

 area was offered by Mr. L. H. Dudley Buxton. His 

 communication "On the Physical Anthropology of 

 -Ancient Greece and Greek Lands " was based upon 

 a study of the cephalic index, stature, upper facial 

 index, and pigmentation of the modern population, 

 and a comparison with the scanty early material avail- 

 able. The mean cephalic index varies from 7920 in 

 Crete to 8751 amonf? the Bektash of Lycia. The 

 modern Greeks are slightly more brachycephalic than 

 the ancient inhabitants of the same places. In Crete 

 it would appear that there had been an immigration 

 or extension of long heads in early times, which was 

 later supplanted by a mixed round- and long-headed 

 population. Tentatively he concluded that (i) the 

 cranial index shows suflficient variety to suggest ethnic 

 admixture ; (2) this admixture has not been evenly 

 distributed, and local and distinct sub-races have been 

 formed ; and (3) the admixture is early, possibly Neo- 

 lithic in Leukas, and Bronze age (or earlier) in Cyprus 

 or Crete. In regard to stature, large numbers^ are 

 available from Crete and Cyp_rus only, but the same 

 conditions appear to make for heterogeneity ; the 

 modern stature appears to be slightly greater than 

 the ancient; but, owing to the small numbers repre- 

 sented, caution is needed in ascribing high or low 

 stature to anv race in the area. At both boundaries 

 of the Greek world there are two racial types of com- 

 parative homogeneity ; the intermediate people, who 

 present local divergences, are very variable. The 

 Greeks are a combination, probably early, of Alpine 

 and Mediterranean stocks. 



Miss Tildeslev, in a communication on the Burmese 



NO. 2668, VOL. 106] 



skull, established by means of a co-efficient of racial 

 likeness that the Burmese skull is closely akin to the 

 .Malayan and less closely to the Chinese, while being 

 widely removed from the Caucasian type. 



In Ethnography Dr. W. H. R. Rivers, in a com- 

 munication on the statues of Easter Island, suggested 

 that these may represent the hypertrophv 01 one 

 element in an association similar to that found in 

 San Christoval, where stone images represent the 

 dead chief buried in the pyramidal structure with 

 which the images are associated. The presence of 

 this hypertrophy in Easter, Pitcairn, and Lavaivai 

 Islands suggested that immigrant workers in stone 

 thus obtained a means for the expression of religious 

 and artistic impulses to which the fuller life of the 

 larger islands of Polynesia and Melanesia gave other 

 outlets. The crowns of red vesicular tufa, he held, 

 represented hats rather than hair, either natural or 

 in the form of wigs, as has been suggested, and might 

 be compared with the hats which are prominent 

 symbols of the dead in Melanesian societies which 

 practise the ghost cult. 



Capt. L. VV. G. Malcolm dealt with the anthropo- 

 geography of the Cameroons, and in particular with that 

 of the area in which the Bantu-speaking; peoples came 

 into contact with the Sudanese; and Prof. E. H. L. 

 Schwarz described certain elements in the culture of 

 the Ovambos, to which he endeavoured, upon some- 

 what slender evidence, to find analogues in the customs 

 of early historical races which were in contact with 

 Africa. 



k very successful afternoon session was devoted to 

 primitive music, with sf)ecial reference to Wales. Dr. 

 H. Walford Davies, in a paper on " Euphony and 

 Folk Music," pointed out that the pentatonic scale, 

 the simplest known form, which recurs all over the 

 world, epitomises the simpler tone-relationships, and 

 is the basis of the Dorian mode, in which so much 

 of the British folk-music is written. Dr. J. Lloyd 

 Williams, in describing Welsh national music, pointed 

 out that while a considerable body of the music shows 

 the influence of the harp, in vocal music, of which 

 an unexpected wealth had recently been discovered, 

 a considerable proportion was in the Dorian and other 

 modes. Of traditional lyrics the best were the very 

 numerous penillion ; these, and the singing of penillion 

 according to North Wales style, constitute unique 

 features in Welsh song. 



.Archaeological papers furnished the most interesting 

 section of the programme. Prof. W. M. Flinders 

 Petrie described recent discoveries of the British 

 School in Egypt, which included a series of tombs of 

 every varietv of type of the First to Third Dynasties ; 

 the tomb of the royal architect of King Senusert II., 

 whose gold uraeus was found in his pyramid ; and 

 a large alabaster jar with a magic inscription to pro- 

 vide all offerings required. Three inscriptions of the 

 Twelfth Dynasty, in alphabetic signs, show that the 

 prehistoric system of personal marks had by that 

 time grown into regular writing, independent of any 

 Semitic system. 



Mr. P. E. Newberry, in his communication "E^rly 

 Egypt and Syria," suggested that the parent culture 

 of the early civilisations of the Nile and the Euphrates 

 should be sought in Syria. The ox, the sheep, and 

 the goat were introduced into Egypt through Syria, 

 and the crook and the flail, the royal insignia of 

 dvnastic Egvpt, were both of Western Asiatic origin, 

 the former being the crook of the goatherd, and the 

 latter, it was suggested, an instrument used 

 by goatherds for gathering ladanum from the cistus 

 bush, which was not found in Egypt. The cults of 



