504 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXIII. No. 



life of the Maya civilization ; but that it continued 

 to hold its important position until well toward 

 the end of the time, when the southern Maya cul- 

 ture resigned its place of preeminence to that 

 part of the Maya people living far to the north- 

 ward. 



The results of the investigations of the Pea- 

 body Museum Expedition of 1909-10 will appear 

 in the Memoirs of the museum. 

 Cretan Anthropometry: Professor Chaeles H. 



Ha WES. 



Since Professor Boyd Dawkins and Dr. Duck- 

 worth concluded that the ancient Cretans belonged 

 to the long-headed dark short Mediterranean race, 

 the examination of additional ancient skulls and 

 measurements of living Cretans made by me have 

 gone far to confirm this conclusion, and to show 

 that the average modern Cretan is a modification 

 of this type and has a broader head than his 

 ancestor. 



Nevertheless, the facts here set forth demon- 

 strate that the ancient Cretans or Minoans with 

 their characteristic long head are still represented 

 in the more inaccessible regions, and that the 

 broadening element is due to the presence of 

 brachycephals who are mainly confined to the 

 plains and coasts. Further, the facts are inter- 

 preted to indicate that the broad heads are 

 descendants of aliens, and in the main to pre- 

 historic immigrants. 



The data for Minoan skulls is obtained from 

 118 crania, of which I use here 78 male skulls 

 (c. 2000 B.C.), leaving out those of the Late 

 Minoan period, during which there is both arche- 

 ologieal and anthropological evidence of an alien 

 immigration. These 78 skulls yield an average 

 cranial index of 74.0, and the long heads are to 

 the broad heads as 5 to 1. 



The data for modern Cretans is large, amount- 

 ing to over 60,000 measurements and observations, 

 and for this reason comparisons are at present 

 confined to the cephalic index. Adding 199 

 Cretans measured by Dr. Duckworth to those 

 measured in my expeditions of 1905 and 1909, we 

 have a total of 3,183. But from these have been 

 deducted foreigners, women and children and even 

 Mussulman Cretans, leaving 2,290 modern Cretans 

 as the basis for the following comparisons. These 

 yield an average cephalic index of 79.0 to be 

 compared with 76.0 (t. e., 74.0, the cranial index, 

 plus 2.0, allowance for the cephalic) . The av- 

 erage modern Cretan is therefore mesaticephalic, 

 midway between his ancestor, the ancient Cretan, 

 and his neighbor, the modem Greek (c. 82.3); 



and the long heads are to the broad heads in the 

 proportion of 5 to 4. The difference is appre- 

 ciable and impels us to ask, do the descendants 

 of the ancient Cretans, with a cephalic index of 

 76.0, exist in Crete to-day ? If so, it is reasonable 

 to suppose that the invading aliens have driven 

 the natives up into the hills, and there we find 

 them. Present in the plains, they predominate in 

 the mountains. In the mountain plain of Lasithi 

 (2,700 ft.) the average cephalic index is 76.5, 

 with a proportion of 9 dolichocephals to 1 brachy- 

 cephal. On the northern slopes of Mount Ida the 

 cephalic index is 76.5. On the northern slopes of 

 the White Mountains, in the west, in one village, 

 65 men averaged 76.9 compared with 79.9 in the 

 plains immediately below. In the Messara Moun- 

 tains of the center, the average was 76.9 in con- 

 trast to 80.9 in the plains. Twenty-eight skulls 

 of revolutionists of 1821 and 1866 chosen at ran- 

 dom from the mausoleum of a mountain mon- 

 astery, yielded a cranial index of 74.2 and a 

 ratio of 4i long-heads to 1 broad-head. In the 

 less accessible mountain regions are thus to be 

 found modern Cretans of similar cephalic index 

 and ratio of dolichocephals to brachycephals to 

 those of Minoan Crete. 



How then has the average cephalic index risen 

 in 4,000 years from 76 to 79? I have already 

 suggested that this change is due to the presence 

 of the descendants of prehistoric immigrants. 

 Reviewing historic invasions, it is possible to 

 dispense with both Turkish and Venetian soma- 

 tological influence. Mussulmans have been rigidly 

 excluded from these records and the Venetians, I 

 have shown by a careful comparison of the Vene- 

 tian-named Cretans with the rest, possess exactly 

 the same average cephalic index, thus evincing a 

 breeding-out in the course of nine generations of 

 the infusion of Venetian blood that Crete received. 

 This leaves us with the prehistoric invasions of 

 the Achseans and the Dorians, which tradition, 

 history and archeology attest. Anthropometry 

 witnesses to an invasion of broad heads in the 

 third Late Minoan period (1450-1200 B.C.). It 

 is to the Dorian inroad, a migration of a people, 

 rather than to the freebooting Achseans, that I 

 attribute the chief part in the broadening of the 

 Cretan head. This is best illustrated in the 

 southwest corner of Crete in the eparchies of 

 Sphakia and Selinon. The Sphakiots are by 

 tradition and dialect Dorians, and seem to have 

 maintained the purity of their blood by resisting 

 all invaders and by the custom of endogamy. 

 They and their neighbors have average cephalic 



