226 



THE GEOLOGIST. 



type, said to be coeval with the bronze and iron periods of man. So 

 far their craniological nature per se fails to demonstrate their anti- 

 quity. 



General biological analogy would not lead us to suppose that short- 

 headed races of men first existed in this planet. We almost invariably 

 find the " lowest " races of animals first. The " dark races of man,"* 

 comprehending the Negros and Australians, are the lowest in our 

 classification. They, if any, oflfer most affinity to the anthropoid 

 apes. They are dolichocephalic. It would be far more consonant 

 with analogy to suppose that the "dark races" once stretched over 

 the tropical' regions of the globe, and have left their modified de- 

 scendants in Africa, Australia, and the Andaman Islands,t long pre- 

 vious to the introduction, origin, or derivation of the lighter races of 

 the Old World, than to infer the existence of a supposititious race 

 of sh.ort-headed men w4th or without simial supraorbital ridges, who 

 flourished over the whole earth (America inclusive) antecedent to 

 historical time. Speculation on this subject must be checked till we 

 Jtnow what are the most ancient crania of the autochthonous tribes 

 of the earth. In America, the mound-builders of the Mississippi 

 valley are possibly the most ancient aborigines of North America. 



They are certainly brachycephalic to a 

 degree transcending the existing Ame- 

 rican races. But the modern Quichua 

 skull J (often termed Inca) is almost as 

 short-headed, and the Quichua race has 

 not the slightest claim to ethnological 

 antiquity. Antecedent to the Quichua 

 races, the " Elat-heads " of Titicaca (not 

 satisfactorily identified with the Aymaras) 

 who peopled Bolivia and Southern Peru 

 for ages of unrecorded duration, even 

 giving due allowance for distortion by 

 artificial pressure, exhibit a long-headed 

 or dolichocephalic type. A plausible hy- 

 pothesis has even been mooted, that the Titicacan Plat-heads dis- 

 torted their crania, with a view to perpetuate the remembrance of 

 tlie dolichocephalic character of their ancestors. Eetzius has at- 

 tempted to identify the "Ancient Peruvians" of Morton, and the 

 so-called "Tluancas" of Tschudi, with the eastern dolichocephalic 

 races of Soutli America. This writer by no means coincided with 

 those authors wlio consider tlie brachycephalic mound-builders of 

 Mississippi as the remains of the typical American stock. He 

 ])ointed out that in the eastern part "of the American continent, 

 from north to south, the dolichocephalic type predominated. The 

 remains from the Brazilian bone-caves, described by Castelnau and 



* Knox. l\accs of IN Fen. 



t I\)ssil)ly in (\Tlon, acoordinti- to 'Mv. Braylcy, F.R.S. : ^Vrcdical Times, May 10, 1862. 

 t ride i;iliiu>lo-n'al Socu ly's 'rransnctions,' May 6, 1SG2, for my paper " On the 

 Craiial Cliaractcis of llio l\'iuviau Kaccs."'— C.C.B*. 



1 2. — Ivlississipp 

 builder. 



mound- 



