THE BONES 



57 



thus giving rise to the so-called Os Incae, and Virchow con- 

 sidered the presence of the Os Incae as the character of a low 

 race ; he also felt compelled to regard as a fixed character of 

 the anthropoids, and the lower races of man, a certain furrow- 

 like depression of the temporal region (sometimes called 

 " temporal strait ") combined with extreme narrowness of the 

 sphenoid bone and the formation of a lepidoid process from 

 the temporal bone direct to the frontal bone. Ranke, 1 however, 

 has shown that among civilised races the same phenomenon 

 occurs in a certain percentage of cases. The division of the 

 frontal bone into two parts, which is peculiar to the lower 

 mammals, not only occurs in the embryonic human skull, but is 

 found not seldom in adults, when the two frontal bones are 

 joined by a suture ; this was pointed out by Canestrini in the 

 brachycephalous skulls exhumed from the glacial drift. 2 



An important difference exists between the arcus supra- 

 orbitalis of the human being (where it is always more pro- 

 nounced in the male than in the female) and that of the 

 anthropoids. In the latter, the prominent supraorbital ridge 

 rests on a massive bone foundation and the frontal cavities are 

 but rudimentary, whereas in 

 man the cavities are highly 

 developed, as may be seen 

 from the skulls of Neander- 

 thal, Spy, Krapina, the Aus- 

 tralian of the present day, 

 many South Sea Islanders, 

 and, indeed, many an inhabi- 

 tant of South Germany. 



It is the cranium which 

 determines the dimensions 

 of the whole head. The 

 Swedish anatomist, Retzius, 

 was the first to classify the 

 primitive races of Europe 

 as (i) long-headed (dolicho- 



FIG. 15. Dolichocephalous skull viewed 

 from the side. L, diameter ; r.L, 

 maximum diameter ; GH, height of 

 face ; GL, length of profile ; NL, 

 height of nose ; OH, height of ear. 

 (From the Corr.-Blatt f. Anthrop., 

 etc., 1883.) 



cephalous). where the diameter from front to back is greater 



than from side to side, and (2) short-headed (brachycephalous) 



1 Ranke, loc. cit., i., 291. 2 Darwin, loc. cit., vol. v., p. 50. 



