226 CERTAIN ABORIGINAL REMAINS, BLACK WARRIOR RIVER. 
some extent, were directly influenced from Mexico. If such were the case, the 
cause of the misrepresentation of the ramus on these skulls would not be far to 
seek. Тһе Mexican codices аге replete with representations of the lower jaw, 
shown in place in the skull and in the head, and sometimes even drawn alone, 
flattened out, as in a diagram, or represented as a receptacle for various objects. In 
many, if not in all, of these representations the articular process is exaggerated, 
being given the form of а hook. Presumably this was done because the artist re- 
garded the articular process as a distinctive feature of the lower jaw and hence 
was determined that it should not escape attention. Miss Н. Newell Wardle, of 
our Academy of Natural Sciences, to whom we are indebted for many references on 
this subject, has called our attention to the point that, presumably, this empha- 
sizing of the articular process of the lower jaw is an expression of the :esthetic 
FIG. 147.— Vessel No. 9. Decoration. Ridge north of Mound R. (About half size.) 
law familiar from the northwest coast of America, where the dorsal fin of the orca 
is always placed conspicuously in representation, though in a majority of cases it 
would be invisible from the view-point. In the same way, the Egyptians show the 
human eye, when the head is in profile, very much as if the human head conformed 
anatomically to that of a fish. | 
So determined was the Mexican artist that the essential attributes of the lower 
jaw should not escape attention that we see the jaw, represented in place in the 
skull, still showing the articular processes, although presenting a front view to the 
observer. А good example of this is shown in Codex Magliabecchiano.! 
The codices, however, it must be noted, so far as our search goes, show no such 
great exaggeration of the articular part of the lower jaw, or perhaps of the whole 
ramus, as we find at Moundville, where part of the lower jaw is represented ав 
extending beyond the occipital part of the skull. 
The skeleton fore-arm shown on this vessel from Moundville, with the radius 
and ulna distinetly represented, has a parallel in many figures in the codices. An 
ЦТ, 8, p. 76. 
