230 REPORTS ON THE STATE OF SCIENCE. 



been dolichocephalic, with a mean cranial index of about 74'0. Along- 

 side of a majority of 60 per cent, long-heads dwelt a minority of about 

 10 per cent, broad-heads. In stature they were short, scarcely 

 feet 4 inches. This estimate of Dr. Duckworth was confirmed by 

 further measurements made by me last year. This, it is to be re- 

 membered, was the condition of things before the prehistoric invasions 

 associated with the names of the ' Acheeans ' and ' Dorians.' 



How do the ancient compare with the modern inhabitants of Crete? 

 Have they changed physically, and bow are we to account for the 

 change? Before contrasting the above data with the measurements 

 of 2,290 living male Cretans a word of warning is necessary. We 

 are comparing the cephalic index of the living with the cranial index 

 of the dead. Assuming a difference of two integers, we shall credit 

 the Minoans with a cephalic index of 76 in place of the cranial index 

 of 74. The modern Cretan has an average cephalic index of 79'0. He 

 is mesaticephalic rather than dolichocephalic, though by no means so 

 broad-headed as the Greek of the mainland, whose mean is about 82'0. 

 The distribution to-day is as follows: — 



Dolichocephals (76 - 9 and below) 296 per cent. 



Brachycephals (82'1 and above) 24'0 „ 



Mesaticephals (77-0-82-0 inclusive) .... 40-4 „ 



The increase of the brachycephals and the mesaticephals at the expense 

 of the dolichocephals since the beginning of the Late Minoan Period is 

 here evident. 



"While the statistical work is as yet under way it is too early to 

 offer a solution of this complex problem, the cause of the physical 

 change in the Cretan people daring the last 4,000 years. When we 

 remember that the island has been subject to several invasions, from pre- 

 historic times down to the seventeenth century, the question is certainly 

 an involved one. I will say here that, in order to do away as much as 

 possible with the effects of the last invasion, that of the Turks, I have 

 excluded all Mussulmans from my figures, although there seems not 

 to be much trace of Turkish blood in the majority of the Cretans who 

 profess Islam. Here and there 1 believe I have traced an individual 

 of Venetian descent; but, having sought Venetians eagerly wherever 

 name or legend suggested, with but little success, and having regard to 

 the wholesale eviction, of them at the end of the sieges, I think that 

 they are a negligible quantity in a general survey like the present. If 

 this is true of the Turkish and Venetian invasions, it is much more true 

 of the Saracenic influence, which was spasmodic and ephemeral. In 

 f-ict, unless we are to call in other causes than the mixture of races 

 for the broadening of the head, the prevalence of the brachycephals and 

 great mixture of the brachycephalic and the dolichocephalic elements 

 to-day seem to me to call for a considerable prehistoric invasion of 

 broad-heads. 



The distribution of types may help us to some clear conception and 

 to understand some suggestions which I put forward with some diffi- 

 dence at this early hour. 



