NO. II MELANESIANS AND AUSTRALIANS — HRDLICKA I9 



THE PUNIN AND TUNEBO SKULLS 



In 1923 Mr. Tate, field assistant of the department of mammalogy, 

 American Musemii of Natural History, found in a ravine near the 

 village of Punin, central Ecuador, a human cranium without the 

 lower jaw (Sullivan and Hellman, 1925). The skull lay "in a low 

 bank, directly over the water-course of the Quebrada Chalan, down 

 which a trickle of water flows normally but which is subjected to 

 torrential violence when rains are heavy." The bank at this point was 

 about 6 or 7 feet high, and the skull appeared " under conditions which 

 suggested but offered no definite proof of considerable antiquity ". 

 (P. 314.) The specimen, which upon being taken out broke under 

 its own weight, was brought to the American Museum and repaired 

 and examined by Sullivan, while the dental arch and teeth were studied 

 by Hellman. 



The cranium is defective, especially in the facial parts, and lacks 

 the lower jaw. It appears to have certain resemblances to an Aus- 

 tralian skull. The conclusion of the authors is as follows : 



While the skull is undoubtedly American in the sense that the Lagoa-Santa, 

 Pericue, and Paltacalo material is American, it is not a common American 

 calvarium ; .... In so far as the calvarium under discussion is concerned, we 

 can only say that there is absolutely no basis for excluding it from a series of 

 Australian or Tasmanian crania and every reason for including it. It is quite 

 possible that if we had the mandible and other parts of the skeleton our de- 

 cision might be different. We wish to emphasize particularly the point that in 

 claiming that this calvarium is Australoid we have in mind a basic racial rela- 

 tionship and do not believe that it necessarily represents migration from Australia 

 or Melanesia. We feel that unless this is indeed a very remarkable case of par- 

 allelism this type in America and the similar type in Australia and Melanesia 

 are derivations of the same basal racial stock. (Pp. 321-323.) 



The Statements in the last two sentences are not readily under- 

 standable, and no effort is made to explain them. 



The author who, next to Rivet, takes the most pronounced stand on 

 the subject of the presence of Melanesians in America, is the esteemed 

 veteran of French anthropologists and Rivet's close friend, R. Ver- 

 neau (1924). In 1922 he receives from a missionary two Indian skulls 

 from Colombia. One of these is deformed, but the other, that of a 

 recent " Tunebo Indian " who died of a snake bite and whose body 

 was abandoned by his friends, is normal. The skull is large (capacity 

 1705 cc'") and the principal measurements of the vault are: length 

 max., 19.1 ; breadth max., 13.3 ; and basilo-bregmatic height, 13.9 cm. 



^ This must be an error ; the outside dimensions of the skull indicate a capacity 

 in the neighborhood of 1550 cc. 



