PHYSICAL ANTHROPOLOGY OF THE LENAPE 
OR DELAWARES, AND OF THE EAST- 
ERN INDIANS IN GENERAL 
J. SKELETAL REMAINS OF THE MUNSEE 
INTRODUCTION 
N 1902, in pursuance of a study of the antiquity of certain skeletal 
remains found in the vicinity of Trenton, New Jersey, the 
writer collected and described all the crania of the Lenape or 
Delaware Indians which at that time were preserved in our museums.1 
From that time until 1914 no further anthropological discoveries of 
consequence were made in the region over which the tribe once 
extended; but during the spring of the latter year careful archeo- 
logical exploration was conducted in the upper Delaware River 
valley in behalf of the Museum of the American Indian in New York, 
by Mr. George G. Heye, with the assistance of Mr. George H. Pepper, 
in the course of which were found the remains of no fewer than 57 
Indian skeletons.?, The bones were not in the best state of preser- 
vation, but they were collected with scrupulous care, and shortly 
after the field work was completed they were presented by Mr. Heye 
to the United States National Museum. This skeletal material forms 
an important addition to the previously limited collections repre- 
senting the Lenape Indians, whose physical identity it is highly de- 
sirable to establish. 
The remains came from a cemetery in the form of a low mound on 
the New Jersey side of the Delaware River, opposite Minisink Island, 
3 miles below Montague, in the northwestern corner of Sussex County, 
New Jersey. The accompanying map (fig. 1) shows the site of the 
cemetery, which lay in the heart of the region once occupied by the 
Munsee branch of the Lenape Indians. 
1 Hrdli¢ka, The Crania of Trenton, New Jersey, and their Bearing upon the Antiquity of Man in that 
Region, Bull. Amer. Museum of Natural History, xvi, art. 311, New York, 1902, pp. 23-62, 22 pl., 4 fig. 
2 For details and archeological results, see George G. Heye and George H. Pepper, Exploration of a Mun- 
see Cemetery near Montague, New Jersey, Contributions from the Museum of the American Indian ( Heye 
Foundation), i, pt. 1, New York, 1915. The Heye Expedition reports some additional burials, but the 
skeletal remains therefrom were in a very defective condition. 
i 
