lO SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 94 



way to draw a conclusion as to identity, nor even to a closeness of the races. 

 Their dimensions in the skulls which I compare do not approach each other ex- 

 cept in result of the reached compensations. Thus in the Papuans a plane pass- 

 ing from the anterior alveolar border and external occipital protuberance leaves 

 beneath it only a very small portion of the occipital bone. This is different in 

 the skull of Lagoa Santa, in which the inferior occipital region bulges con- 

 siderably. It is the exceptional development of this portion which compensates 

 for the lowering of the vault and gives to the skull its great height." 



To which Quatrefages adds : 



In taking here "the Papuan head for comparison, I do not intend to establish 

 any ethnological relation between the man of Sumidouro and the inhabitants 

 of New Guinea. Hypsistenocephaly is found also in the African Negroes and 

 among the Malaysian populations, but at the moment when I wrote the present 

 memoir, the Papuans were the only ones whose craniological study had been 

 finished. This is why I believed it interesting to point out the characteristics 

 possessed in common bv these two human groups so distant in space and in 

 time." 



Notwithstanding Quatrefages' clear and most sensible statements, 

 a " Melanesian " suggestion has been made and will insistently be 

 used by later authors in support of their theories. 



The next to discuss the Lagoa Santa crania is the anatomist and 

 anthropologist Kollmann (1884). After a study of 11 of the speci- 

 mens at Copenhagen, his conclusions, so far as the characteristics of 

 the skulls are concerned, are that — 



howsoever valuable all these individual features established by means of crani- 

 ology are, much more significant still is the fact, which must impress itself 



" " Par la reunion de la dolichocephalic et de I'hypsistenocephalie, la tete 

 de Lagoa-Santa se rapproche d'une maniere assez inattendue des tetes de divers 

 autres races et en particulier des tetes papouas. Les deux caracteres sont 

 meme plus accuses chez elle, que chez la moyenne des Melanesiens si bien 



etudies par M-r Hamy En signalant ces ressemblances, je n'entends 



nullement conclure a une identite, ni meme a un voisinage des races. Les chiffres 

 precedents ne se rapprochent que par suite des compensations etablies dans 

 les tetes que je compare. Ainsi chez les Papouas un plan passant par le 

 bord alveolaire anterieur et la protuberence occipitale externe, ne laisse au 

 dessous de lui qu' une tres faible portion de I'occipital. II en est autrement dans 

 le crane de Lagoa-Santa, ou la region occipitale inferieure se renfle consider- 

 ablement. C'est le developement exceptionnel de cette partie qui compense le 

 surbaissement de la voute et donne au crane sa grande hauteur." (Pp. 329-330.) 



""En prenant ici la tete papouas pour terme de comparaison, je n'entends 

 etablir d'ailleurs aucun rapport ethnologique entre I'homme du Sumidouro et 

 les habitants de la Nouvelle Guinee. L'hypsistenocephalie se retrouve chez les 

 negres africains, chez les populations malaisiennes, mais au moment, ou je 

 redigeais le memoire actuel, les papouas etaient les seuls dont I'etude crani- 

 ologique fut terminee. Voila pourquoi j'ai cru interessant de signaler la com- 

 munaute de caracteres existant entre ces groupes humains si distant dans 

 I'espace et dans le temps." (Footnote 2, p. 329.) 



