46 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 94 



Pronounced grades of dolicho-steno-hypsicephaly occur in native 

 skulls in other parts of America, and they even occur in instances 

 among English and American whites, with no pathological significance. 

 The essential character in such skulls or heads is the narrowness of 

 the vault, the length and height being in the main of compensatory 

 nature. The causes of the excessive normal narrowness are as yet 

 not clearly understood. The sutures in such cases show no premature 

 occlusion, the temporal muscles no excessive development. Such 

 individual skulls do not fall outside the curve of normal variation : 

 they are merely at its extreme; there is no reason, therefore, to 

 regard them either as mutants or as extraneous. This type of skull 

 tends, however, to " run " in families, and an incidental segregation 

 of such families could quite possibly produce a regional strain or 

 group marked predominantly by conspicuous narrowness of the skull. 



Such a segregation has apparently taken place in southern Lower 

 California, as may have happened before in the Lagoa Santa region 

 and elsewhere in America. Recent evidence shows a similar group 

 in southwestern Texas. Some very narrow skulls, proceeding from 

 north-central Texas, were recently brought to our attention by Hooton 

 (1933)- Of four of the five crania, Hooton says: "They are ex- 

 cessively dolichocephalic ", but otherwise " in no particular unusual " ; 

 they may represent one of the earlier strata of the American popula- 

 tion, but " there is a definite possibility that the extreme dolichocephaly 

 of these skulls is merely a local or familial variation." Western Texas 

 seems particularly fertile in this type of specimens. The whole subject 

 is now being studied by Dr. Stewart (1935) of the United States 

 National Museum. Decidedly narrow and long, and often high, 

 crania may be seen not uncommonly among the eastern Algonkins, 

 especially those of Long, Manhattan, and Staten Islands (Hrdlicka, 

 1927, 1916). Cranial vaults (not considering facial parts) exceed- 

 ingly like those of Lower California and Texas, are now known from 

 Labrador, Greenland, the old igloos near Point Barrow, and Seward 

 Peninsula (Hrdhcka, 1930). 



It seems that henceforth it wall be necessary to recognize in both 

 the Americas a widespread though irregular occurrence, among the 

 dolichocephalic types, of skulls with excessively narrow, long, and 

 frequently relatively high vaults, with here and there a local segrega- 

 tion and consequent prevalence of these characters. Such grouping, 

 as indicated, is especially common among the Arctic Eskimo, but has 

 manifested itself also here and there among the Indians. The " type " 

 thus produced means, according to all the evidence, nothing extra- 

 American, nor does it mean as Quatrefages inclined to believe, an 



