40 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 94 



As to the hair and features, the normal ranges of individual varia- 

 tion here, too, account for racial approaches. But there enters here 

 another important factor on the originally Latin parts of the American 

 continent, and that is the extensive admixture with post-Columbian 

 African blacks. During more than four centuries the Negro has been 

 brought to America. The total number of African blacks thus intro- 

 duced into this continent reached millions. A considerable number 

 from among these blacks have mixed with the Indians, and the result- 

 ing mixbloods have, as captives or visitors, spread the new blood 

 widely, even to tribes that may never have had any direct contact with 

 the Negro. Thus more or less truly Negroid features, as those of 

 Whites, may today appear almost anywhere in the American tribes, 

 but they mean as a rule a post-Columbian African, or again European, 

 admixture. All this is well known to all anthropologists, but is often 

 lost sight of. 



THE SKULL AND THE SKELETON 



What has just been said about the body applies also to the skull 

 and the skeleton. Apparently Negroid characteristics of and about 

 the nasal aperture, especially, are not rare in America, particularly 

 in the hot regions. In the Southwest it is the Pueblos that show this 

 more than the Californians, but the resemblance is limited to the nasal 

 aperture, not extending to the nasal bones or other structures. More- 

 over, there is generally no reflection of it in the living. 



As to the relative dimensions of the vault of the skull — in other 

 words, its type — these are as much simply architectonic as of racial 

 significance. Individual skulls from widely dififerent races may and 

 do closely resemble each other in both their absolute and relative pro- 

 portions without there having been the slightest contact between the 

 groups. It is well established that all recent human groups belong to 

 the same species, that their differentiation is not very ancient, that 

 their skeletal development follows the same laws, and that barring 

 their distinguishing external marks, they present many similarities. 

 It is only the totality of detailed cranial and facial characters of an 

 ample series of skulls that is of much value in racial differentiation. 

 To what disastrous results an implicit dependence on some of the 

 cranial measurements or characters might lead, especially in single 

 or but a few specimens, has been shown repeatedly even in cases of 

 noted authors. With the bones of the skeleton matters are even more 

 difficult, the general pan-human resemblances being still closer. It 

 would be a rash anthropologist who from the skeleton alone, less the 

 skull, would attempt a positive racial identification, except perhaps 



