620 DESCRIPTION OF FIGURES OF SKULLS, 



In the profile view we have the characteristically equable 

 dolicho-cephalic curve, beg-inning after a vertical course for a 

 short distance above the upper edge of the supraciliary ridg-es, 

 and sweeping round to the centre of the superior occipital squama, 

 which then bends downwards and forwards to a transversely running 

 but not largely developed protuherantia externa, which is dis- 

 tinguishable from, though continuous with the commencement of 

 the linea nuchcB mediana in a tuherculum linearum. The frontal 

 length taken to this last point is shorter than the extreme length 

 taken to the centre of the occipital squama by as much as fV^hs of 

 an inch. The mastoids are largely developed, and what is of some 

 importance to state, as the sex of the Engis calvaria has been 

 supposed to be female, these processes, which in the Engis specimen 

 are only imperfectly represented, taken together with the lower 

 jaw, which in the case of the Engis calvaria has not been identified, 

 leave no doubt as to the sex of their owner having been male. 

 Had this calvarium been as imperfect as is the Engis, there would 

 have been more justification than there is in the case of that 

 specimen for suggesting that it may have belonged to a woman. 

 There is no doubt that the lower jaw belonging to this skull justifies 

 us in speaking of its owner as having been a strong male subject, 

 its angle, mentum^ and coronoid being all alike powerfully developed^ 

 and its ramus showing on its lower edge the undulation anterior to 

 its angle and the ridges on the internal surface of that area which are 

 distinctive of muscular men. The one wisdom tooth, remaining on 

 the left side, shows some wear from use upon its two anterior cusps, 

 the absence however of wear upon the posterior may perhaps have 

 been due to the absence of any wisdom tooth on the left side above, 

 a point which cannot now be determined. The other teeth are 

 much worn, the mastoids are very large, and, though the sutures 

 are often very extensively obliterated in skulls of this type before 

 middle life^ their very extensive obliteration here, both internally 

 and externally, coupled with the two other points just specified, 

 make it safe to speak of this skull as one of a man of at least 

 the middle period of life. In the norma verticalis this skull is seen 

 to taper somewhat rapidly forwards from the point of maximum 

 width which lies in the plane of the mastoids, but on the level of 

 the upper edge of the squamous ; it tapers even more rapidly 

 backwards, as the measurement of the extreme occipital width 

 shows when compared with the measurement of extreme width ; 

 a depression existing on either side at the ' asterion' or site of the 



