FROM THE NEW HEBRIDES. CAMERON. 415 



The Fronto-parietal Index. — This index is one that has 

 not received the attention it deserves from anthropologists 

 and evolutionists. Indeed it is only during recent years 

 that its importance and significance have been really appre- 

 ciated. So far as the bibliography at my disposal indicates, 

 Schwalbe^'^*^ appears to have ])een one of the pioneers in exploit- 

 ing its application to craniometry, for he makes full use 

 of it in his classic memoir on the Neanderthal skull, though 

 he takes care to emphasise the fact that the index is not always 

 an infallible means of demarcating the anthropoid apes from 

 examples of fossil hominidse such as the Neanderthal specimen, 

 For example, the fronto-parietal index of the Krapina skull 

 which represents a type of Neanderthal or Mousterian man, 

 has been calculated b}- Kramberger*^^"'^ to be 64.7, this being 

 actually less than that of the skull of the Java man-ape, 

 which works out at 65.4.^^'^^ Figure 1 is an outline of the 

 skull of the Java man-ape viewed from above and drawn to 

 scale. It shows how intense is the degree of post-frontal 

 constriction which, according to the index, is 65.4% of 

 the maximum parietal breadth. For purposes of compa- 

 rison, the outline of No. 2 skull seen from above is 

 shown in Figure 1, which is also drawn to the same scale. 

 The fronto-parietal index of No. 2 skull was as low as 72.6, 

 that is to saj', it was actually less than that of the Neanderthal 

 skull (see Figure 2) which has been calculated as 73.1, and 

 was much below the average index for the aboriginal Aus- 

 tralian of to-day which has been given as 11 P''^ The cor- 

 responding index in No. 1 skull, as was to be expected, was 

 decidedly higher than that of No. 2, namely 77.8, and, as 

 would be noted, a little above the aboriginal Australian 

 average. Another important point emphasised in Fig. 1 

 is the marked phaenozygous condition exhibited by No. 2 

 skull. 



The Calvarial Height Index. — This is another cranial index 



