CRANIOLOGY OF PEOPLE OF INDIA. 117 



occipital squama. One skull had an epipteric bone on each side ; another had on the 

 left side a broad articulation of the squamous temporal with the frontal, and on the right 

 both an epipteric bone and a direct temporo-frontal articulation. In one the os planum 

 of the ethmoid was so narrowed in front that the orbital plate of the maxilla almost 

 articulated with the frontal ; this specimen approached therefore the condition of direct 

 fronto-maxillary articulation, such as I have previously referred to on page 94. 

 In three skulls indications of an infra-orbital suture were present. The lower 

 jaw had a feeble chin and shallow symphysis, the vertical diameter of the body of 

 the bone was moderate, the coronoid process was short, and the sigmoid notch 

 shallow. The cubic capacity of the crania was small ; the males ranged from 1080 

 to 1270, with a mean 1202 c.c. : the females from 1080 to 1153, with a mean of 

 1106 c.c. 



Although Owen and Busk had described a few crania, the late Sir Wm. Flower 

 made the most extensive research into the characters of the Andaman skull that has 

 yet been conducted. He described* a series forty-eight in number, six of which 

 were metopic, and as one of my specimens had the same character, it is obvious 

 that a persistent frontal suture is not uncommon in the crania of this race. The 

 mean length-breadth index of his specimens was 82 '8. The height was less than 

 the breadth, and the length-height index was 77 '7. The mean gnathic index was 

 100 in the men, 102 in the women. The mean nasal index was 51*1, and the 

 orbital index, though variable, had a mean 90*9. Both in Flower's series and in 

 mine the length-breadth index was brachy cephalic ; the height was distinctly below 

 the breadth ; the upper jaw was mesognathous ; the nasal index was mesorhine 

 or platyrhine ; the orbits were mesoseme or megaseme ; the cranial capacity was 

 microcephalic. The number of specimens examined is so large as to justify one 

 in saying that the leading characters of the cranium in these people have now been 

 ascertained. 



The series of Dravidian crania described in this Memoir differ in essential particulars 

 from those of the Andaman Islanders, and the eye at once recognises the differential 

 features, both in form and proportion. The measurements made by Mr Thurston of the 

 heads of the hill tribes in the Madras Presidency have shown the great majority to have 

 a length-breadth index below 75, though a few ranged from 75 to 77*5; the south 

 Dra vidians, like those further north, have, therefore, heads of dolichocephalic proportions. 

 Did we accept the view that a brachy cephalic Negrito people preceded the Dravidians 

 in the occupation of India, we could not, I consider, regard the latter, either in cranial 

 configuration or external physical characters, as the direct descendants of the former. 

 It might be argued that had there been a previous Negrito people, some amount of 

 intermixture in times past of the two races might have taken place, which might have 

 led to the production of a wavy or curly character of the hair such as has been seen in 

 the tribes referred to on p. 114, and to the occasional presence of a skull tending to 



* Joum. Anthrop. Inst., Nov. 1879, vol. ix., and Nov. 1884. 



