52 



BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY 



[BVI.I,. 33 



CONCLUSION 



The inevitable conclusion from the above examination, which \\;i- 

 conducted with a hope that the sprcinicn might prove beyond doul>t 

 an ancient one, since such a discovery would oe of the greatest impor- 

 tance to American and even to general anthropology, is, as expresM-l 

 before, that the Lansing skeleton is practically identical with tin- 

 typical male skeleton of a large majority of the present Indians of 

 the Middle and the Eastern states. Any assumption that it is many 

 thousands of years old, dating from a past geological period, would 

 carry with it not only the comparatively easily acceptable assump- 

 tion of so early an existence of man on this continent, but also the 

 very far-reaching and far more difficult conclusions that this man was 

 physically identical with the Indian of the present time, and that 

 his physical characteristics during all the thousands of years assumed 

 to have passed have undergone absolutely no important modification. 



In order to present further evidence in support of the view here 

 taken the writer has selected from the collection in the National 

 Museum several modern male adult crania of individuals belonging to 

 tribes that occupy or occupied sections not far distant from that in 

 which the Lansing skeleton was found. The measurements of th'-<' 

 skulls, contrasted with those of the Lansing cranium, are appended, 

 with an illustration (figure 7). The similarities are very apparent. 

 If the Lansing skull differs in any way from the others, it is in its 

 somewhat better development, particularly over the frontal region. 

 But the type of the skulls is the same. It would have been well to 

 include some Potawatomi and Kickapoo crania, but these tribes are 

 poorly represented in our cranial collections. 



Comparative measurements of the Lansituj xkull and the skulls of other Plain* 



Indian* 



Approximate. Between 1,525 and 1,550 cubic centimeters (calculated). 



