22G 
THE GEOLOGIST. 
type, said to be coeval v^ ith. 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. AVe 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, ofl:er 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,! 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 short-headed men with 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 
know 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 mcst ancient aborigines of jN^orth America. 
They are certainly brachycephalic to a 
degree transcending the existing Ame- 
rican races. But the modern Quichua 
skull:|: (often termed Inca) is almost as 
short-headed, and the Quichua race has 
not the slio-htest claim to ethnoloo^ical 
antiquity. Antecedent to the Quichua 
races, the "Flat-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 Flat-heads dis- 
torted their crania, with a view to perpetuate the remembrance of 
the dolichocephalic character of their ancestors. Eetzius has at- 
tempted to identify the "Ancient Peruvians " of Morton, and the 
so-called "Huancas" of Tschudi, with the eastern dolichocephalic 
races of South America. This writer by no means coincided with 
those authors who consider tlie brachycephalic mound-builders of 
Mississippi as the remains of the typical American stock. He 
pointed 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. Eaces of Men. 
t Possibly in Ceylon, according to Mr. Brayley, F.R.S. : Medical Times, May 10, 1 862. 
:j: Vide Ethnological Society's Transactions, Mny 6, 1862, for my paper " On the 
Cranal Characters of the Peruvian Races." — C.C.B. 
Fig. 12. — Mississippi mound- 
builder. 
