228 REPORTS ON THE STATE OF SCIENCE.—1914. 
few years later during the Pyramid Age. Alveolar abscesses are 
common enough, but they are not, as a rule, the result of dental 
caries, as I have explained above. 
The contrast presented by this collection of human remains to 
those of the Proto-Egyptian population of the Predynastic period is 
so profound, and the alien features so widely diffused amongst them, 
that a fundamental problem is raised for discussion. This question is 
so large that I propose specially to consider its bearings in a separate 
communication to the Association. 
The intimate blending of this Egyptian population with a people 
of foreign type and origin at so early a period as the Second and Third 
Dynasties points to the fact that we have to deal, not with a recent 
admixture, but one which must have been taking place for many 
generations before the time of the Second Dynasty. But we have no 
evidence to indicate whether the Western Asiatic element—for there 
can be no doubt as to the nature of the alien strain—had been percolat- 
ing into the Delta gradually, or came more suddenly in larger volume 
possibly as a people already mixed to some extent with Egyptian blood 
in Syria or elsewhere. 
The important result emerges from such considerations that the 
people who developed the wonderful and precocious civilisation of 
Egypt were not pure Proto-Egyptians. The growth of early Egyptian 
civilisation no doubt represents the gradual evolution of the ideas and 
the arts and crafts which we know to have had their origin among the 
Predynastic people of Upper Egypt; but their full fruition came only 
when the contact of peoples of diverse origin in Lower Egypt brought 
the influence of new: ideas and new manners of thought—probably 
also a more virile type of intellect—to stimulate and help in the 
development of the Egyptian civilisation. 
B. The Human Remains of the Hyksos Period found in the Southern 
Part of the Kerma Basin (Sudan). 
At the end of 1913 I received from Professor George A. Reisner, 
who, working on behalf of Harvard University and the Boston 
Museum, had excavated a site at the south of the Kerma Basin, in 
the Dongola Province, a series of skeletons of the Hyksos Period. 
These bones were sent to me for examination, with the consent of the 
Archeological Committee of the Sudan Government and the approval 
of the Governor-General, Sir Reginald Wingate, whose interest in the 
anthropology of the Sudan is well known. 
As only a part of the material has yet been sent to me, and as 
Dr. Reisner has not yet communicated the details of the archeological 
evidence, it would perhaps be preferable if I withhold my report until 
next year. 
I may say that the tombs of the wealthier people contained the 
remains of typical Egyptians, such as we know to have lived in the 
Thebaid during the times of the New Empire; while the other tombs 
contained skeletons of Proto-Egyptian and Middle Nubian (C group) 
types. Although slight negroid traits are common, there is a sur- 
prising absence of the more obtrusive negro features. 
