306 BUREAU OF AMEEICAN ETHNOLOGY Ibuli.. 52 



alveolar process was also somewhat low. Both of these features 

 may be due in part to reduction through age, for the teeth show 

 some extrusion; but even if not so, they are signs of slight significance 

 and point rather away from than to the primitive nature of the 

 specimen. Yet relative lowness of the horizontal ramus, especially 

 at the symphysis, often accompanies massiveness (as also exists in 

 this specimen), and both of these features are not infrequently seen 

 together with a broad ascending ramus, all standing evidently in 

 relation with a functional use of the jaw greater than average.^ 



But the weightiest point against any great primitiveness of the 

 jaw is the presence of the cliin. None of the mammals, none of 

 the apes, none of the truly primitive forms of man so far known, 

 possess this feature. The chin prominence of the present human 

 lower jaw is to a large extent merely a remnant, the result of a great 

 reduction in the ancestral size of the teeth and the length of the 

 alveolar processes, the lower and less functional portion of the jaw 

 lagging behind. The lower jaw, with a very much reduced chin, 

 ma}'' occur even in present man and not carry any great significance 

 (see under Homo sinemento), but one with a well-marked chin can 

 not possibly be very ancient and can not, so far as we are now able 

 to judge, come from any very early representative of the human 

 family. 



Other bones of the Miramar skeleton. — Femora: These bones are of 

 medium masculine dimensions. The right is somewhat pilasteric, 

 with prismatic shaft ; the shape of the shaft of the left bone is interme- 

 diate between prismatic and elliptic. Both bones show marked lateral 

 torsion, as is frequently met with in the femora of the Indians. The 

 usual bend backward is present to a moderate degree and extends 

 over the whole shaft. Both bones are markedly platymeric, a feature 

 which, while not exclusively Indian, is a characteristic of many of 

 the Indian femora. 



The surface of the bones is more or less defective, eroded. The 

 left femur possesses a moderate third trochanter; on the right the 

 parts are damaged. 



The principal measurements of the two femora, with some com- 

 parative data, are given below. 



The length of the bones indicates a man of medium stature, not 

 far from 1.64 meters; and the other dimensions, but especially the 

 pilasteric as well as the platymeric indices, agree closely efiough with 

 those of the ordinary natives of northeastern Patagonia. There is 

 not a feature about the bones that points to any early species of 

 man or to any man other than the ordinary Indian. 



•See writer's "Contribution to the Antliropology of Central and Smith Sound Eskimo;" SnAvHir. 

 Papers Amcr. Mus. Nat. Hist., v, pt. 2, New York, 1910, pp. 170-280. 



