hhdliCka] general CONSIDERATIONS 5 



writing/ and as was shown lately by G. Elliot Smith and Derry also/ 

 the susceptibility of the organism to modification, even under these 

 exceptionally uniform environmental conditions, has not been over- 

 come, and numerous changes in the Egyptian skeleton between the 

 predynastic and middle dynastic, and again between that and the 

 Coptic period, excluding from consideration the influence of negro 

 infusion, are perceptible. In other countries such changes have been 

 more pronounced. In Eussia, Bohemia, Germany, France, England, 

 cranial alterations have taken place witliin the last 2,000 years, all of 

 wliich can hardly be explained by migration or admixture. In the 

 American Indian many territorially localized morphologic modifica- 

 tions have become manifest witliin relatively recent times, for almost 

 every tribe to-day possesses some distinguisliing marks of body as 

 well as of skeleton; and further modifications are certainly now tak- 

 ing place in the Indian with changing conditions. 



All these facts bear evidence strongly against the persistence of 

 the same type of man in any region from the Pleistocene or an 

 even older period to the present. The fundamental causes of tliis 

 incomplete stability are, on the one hand, the nature of the human 

 organism, wliich like every other organism is in its ultimate analysis 

 a chemical complex, living by chemical change and subject to physi- 

 cal and chemical influences, and on the other the variability of these 

 influences. So long as the chemical status of the organism, especially 

 that of the developing organism and of the perpetuating or genera- 

 tive elements of the species, is not in absolute and lasting harmony 

 with the environment, so long, it is safe to say, will absolute fixed- 

 ness of structure and form be impossible. This expresses the case in 

 its extremes without considering its complexity, and applies to the 

 ultimate components and coordinations of the organism, but the 

 principle, which reduced to the simplest terms is that of action and 

 reaction between the protoplasm and the environment, holds good for 

 all variations in the human body. The bearing of these considera- 

 tions in connection with the theme in hand wiU be more clearly 

 apparent as the several special parts of this report are presented. 



The second important subject which calls for brief discussion in this 

 place is that of the alterations of bones after burial. Such alterations 

 are partly organic, partly mechanical, and partly chemical, and may 

 be classed as foUows: 



(1) General decay and disintegration; (2) loss of organic substance 

 through bacterial or mineral agencies; (3) partial mechanical loss of 

 organic and chemical elements, through erosion; (4) covering by 



1 Note sur la variation morphologique des Egyptiens depuis les temps prfihistoriques ou pr§dyiiastics; in 

 Bull, et Mem. Soc. d'Anthr. Paris, Sine s6r., x, 1909, pp. 143-4. 



2 Smith, G. Elliot, and F. Wood Jones, The Archeological Survey of Nubia, 4°, 2 vol., Cairo, 1910. Also 

 Smith, G. Elliot, and D. E. Derry, Bulletin 6 of the same Survey, Cairo, 1910, and G. Elliot Smith, The 

 People ot Egypt, in The Cairo Sci. Jour., No. 30, m, Alexandria, 1909. 



