hrdliOka] skeletal REMAIlSrS OF EARLY MAN 175 



The skulls are dolichocephalic, but in one of the females the 

 cephalic index rises to brachycephaly. This skull differs from the 

 others also in some other respects. It is difficult to say whether it 

 represents an individual variation only or whether it is an evidence 

 that there has been a mixture of different racial elements. 



However this may be, ''it is plain that if Kollmann had examined 

 15 instead of only 11 of the skulls, he would not have said that all 

 the crania belonged to individuals of one perfectly pure race, and he 

 probably would not have reached, on the basis of such homogeneity, 

 the conclusion of a great antiquity. 



''Nothing is less proven than the opinion that at the epoch of the 

 race of Lagoa Santa, mixture of this with other ethnic elements had 

 not as yet taken place." 



As to the statements of Lund, Reinhardt, and Kollmann, that the 

 skulls of Lagoa Santa offer well-definetl characteristics of American 

 crania and of those of the actual Indians, ten Kate says: "I accept 

 willingly the view that the skulls of Lagoa Santa offer great analogies 

 with other American series, notably with the Botocudos and natives 

 of Lower California;" but he is not willing to admit, on account of the 

 great differences in the craniologic characteristics of the different 

 Indians, that the form of the Lagoa Santa skulls represents the 

 typical form of the American aborigines in general. 



As to the antiquity of the Sumidouro cave remains, "I am," says 

 ten Kate, "with IMr. Liitken, rather of the opinion of those who do 

 not accept as yet the contemporaneity of the man of Lagoa Santa 

 with the extinct mammals of the Quaternary period in Brazil." 



In 1887 the Lagoa Santa skulls are mentioned once more by A. de 

 Quatrefages in his ''Histoire generale des races humaines."^ The 

 author proceeds as if the antiquity of the remains was established 

 beyond any possible doubt. 



"These ancient inhabitants of Brazil," he says, "were also the 

 contemporaries of now extinct species of animals; they belonged to 

 the geologic age which preceded ours. . . . The man who left his 

 bones in the cave of Sumidouro lived at an epoch corresponding 

 probably to our reindeer age." 



The next communication on the subject of the Lagoa Santa human 

 remains is another paper by Liitken, published in the first volume of 

 memoirs from the Lund Museum. ^ It deals principally V/ith the 

 history of the finds and with considerations relative to their age. 

 The conclusions concerning the latter point are simple and judicial. 

 Liitken says : 



"None of the bones found in the caves showed any effect of man's 

 activity, nor did the human bones show any traces of attacks by the 



1 Paris, 1887, pp. 82-83. 



2 Liitken, Chr. Fr., Indledende Bemaerkninger om Menneskelevninger i BrasUiens Huler og i de Lundske 

 Samlinger. En Samling af Afhandlinger e Museo Lundii, i, Kjobenhavn, 1888, pp. 1-29. 



