HRDLICKA] SKELETAL REMAINS 1 
hand, change with environment and culture; such changes in activities 
may take place much more slowly in some localities than in others, yet 
they are bound to manifest themselves everywhere in the course of 
ages and to be followed by corresponding and recurring structural 
alterations. The great skeletal diversity of mankind to-day can be 
accounted for in no other manner. The alterations in the skull or 
bones need not be general or even of prime importance, and may re- 
quire for their discovery detailed study and extended comparisons; 
but in the case of an individual from the earlier stages of the period 
immediately preceding the recent they should be pronounced enough 
to be easily apprehended. The geologically ancient crania of Europe 
may be cited in support of this statement. In the case of single fea- 
tures, however, or with scanty material, all far-reaching conclusions 
must be avoided, for in such cases we can not be certain that we are 
outside of the territory of semipathological occurrences, and features 
of reversion, degeneration, or purely accidental rariation limited to 
individuals or small numbers of persons. 
In this connection it is necessary to bear in mind also human 
migrations, resulting in a replacement of physical types. While 
the stability of the same stock of people 1s much greater in some 
localities than is generally appreciated, it is probable that in a large 
majority of places one or more replacements of population have 
occurred even during recent geological time. On this account alone 
the explorer is very likely to find in recent burials racial types dis- 
tinct from those found in older burials. The greater the differ- 
ence in age between two sets of osseous human remains the greater 
the improbability, for the reason just given above, that they belong 
to one physical variety. 
To summarize, identification of human bones as those of early 
man—that is, man of geological antiquity—demands indisputable 
stratigraphical evidence, some degree of fossilization of the bones, 
and marked serial somatological distinctions in the more important 
osseous parts. A skeleton or a skull not fossilized or one (whether 
fossilized or not) agreeing in most of the more essential features 
a@qt has been stated on good authority (A. Thompson and D. Randall-MaclIver, The 
Ancient Races of the Thebaid, Oxford, 1905; and Chas. §. Myers, Contributions to 
Egyptian Anthropometry, Journal of the Anthropological Institute, xxxv, 80-91, 1905) 
that the most ancient known inhabitants of Egypt, dating from about seven thousand to 
eight thousand years ago, show no important difference of type from certain Egyptian 
natives of the present day. If definitely settled, the fact would be of much importance , 
it does not appear, however, that much attention was paid to numerous features of the 
skulls such as do not enter ordinarily into anthropometric determinations, but which may 
play a large part in making distinctions. It is often possible to detect just such second- 
ary or less commonly studied characteristics in different localities among the Indians, even 
though these belong to the same general type, and it may be confidently asserted that 
they would be found to differentiate recent from ancient man in any locality. It should 
be borne in mind also in connection with the Egyptian crania that seven thousand or 
eight thousand years is really but a short period geologically, equaling probably less than 
half of the recent era. See on this subject also E. Schmidt, in the Arch. f. Anthrop., XVU, 
189 et seq., 1888. 
