HBDLICKA] ORIGIN AX I) ANTIQUITY OF THE ESKIMO 359 



size and characteristics of the teeth. 2 " smallness of hands and feet, 

 etc.. the Eskimos are remarkably alike over their whole territory. 

 They differ in details, such as stature, form of the head, and breadth 

 of the nose, lint the distribution of these differences is of much 

 interest and probably significance. Higher statures, broader heads, 

 and broader noses are found especially in the west, the latter two 

 particularly in the Bering Sea region; low group statures, narrow 

 heads and narrow noses reach, with few exceptions, their extremes 

 in the northeast. Between the two extremes, however, there is no 

 interruption, but a gradation, with here and there an irregularity. 

 These conditions speak not of mixture but rather of adaptation and 

 differentiation. 



They strongly suggest a moderate stream of people, rooted in Asia, 

 of fairly broad ami but moderately high head, of a good medium 

 stature, with a mesorrhinic nose (and hence probably originally not 

 far northern), and with many other characteristics in common, reach- 

 ing America from northeasternmost Asia after the related Indians, 

 spreading along the seacoasts as far as it could, not of choice, or choice 

 alone, but mainly because of the blocking by the Indian of the roads 

 toward the south ami through the Interior; and gradually modifying 

 physically in adaptation to the new conditions and necessities; to 

 climate, newer modes of life, the demands of the kayak, and above 

 all to the results of the increased demands on the masticatory organs. 



The narrowness, increased length and increased height of the 

 Eskimo skull, without change in its size or other characteristics, may 

 readily be understood as compensatory adaptations, the develop- 

 ment of which was initiated and furthered by the development and 

 mechanical effects of the muscles of mastication. 



A similar conclusion has been reached in my former study on the 

 central and Smith Sound Eskimo (1910). It has been approached 

 or reached independently by other students of the Eskimo, notably 

 Fiirst and Hansen (1915) in their great work on the East Green- 

 landers. It is a conclusion of much biological importance for it 

 involves not merely the development but also the eventual inheritance 

 of new characters. 



Former authors, it was seen, have advanced the theories of an 

 American origin of the Eskimo. This could only mean that he 

 developed from the American Indian. And such a development 

 would imply physical and hereditary changes at least as great as 

 those indicated in the preceding paragraphs, and in less time. A 

 differentiation commenced well back in Asia, geographically and 

 chronologically, and advancing, to its present limits, in America 

 would seem the more probable. 



•" See Amer. J. Phys. Anthrop.. vi, Nos. 2 :ind 4. 1923. 



