THE GLENOID FOSSA IN THE SKULL OF THE ESKIMO. 
5 
youngsters, some of them not yet over three years of age 
chewed the dripping meat and blubber." (This meat and blub- 
ber was raw and the author was there describing the scene of 
feasting after the killing of some seals). Lastly, “Very small 
tots might be seen at any time chewing pieces of raw seal or 
walrus meat." 
This will be enough to show the nature of the food of these 
people and how very essential it must be for them to be provided 
with strong jaws and with biting and chewing muscles corres- 
pondingly large and powerful. When we examine a series of 
skulls of adult Eskimo, we have ample evidence that our 
conclusions from the nature of their food, are borne out 
by the form of their jaws and the muscle attachments 
on their skulls. An Eskimo’s jaws are essentially of a biting 
and chewing type. The extent for the attachment of the tem- 
poral muscles on the sides of the skull is very great, being on the 
whole more marked in the skulls of this race than in 
any other of the existing races of man. The external pterygoid 
plates are large; this is noted in a paper by J. Brierley and F. 
G. Parsons . 1 “The external pterygoid plate is very broad 
antero-posteriorly. This is probably due to the development of 
the pterygoid muscles." This is important since the external 
pterygoid muscles are the chief agents in the lateral movements 
of the mandible and, as I shall endeavour to show, it is just 
this lateral triturating movement when practised early and 
extensively, that is of importance in its flattening effect on the 
glenoid fossa. The zygomatic arches and malar bones are large 
and projecting. Especially is the form of the mandible note- 
worthy (see Plate III); the ascending ramus is low, broad, and 
strong, the area for insertion of the masseter and pterygoid 
muscles being well marked and very extensive. Now the super- 
ficial portion of the masseter muscle assists the external pterygoid 
in drawing the lower jaw forward upon the upper, the jaw being 
drawn back again by the deep fibres of the masseter and posterior 
fibres of the temporal. The marked development of the mas- 
seter and the posterior fibres of the temporal muscles in the 
1 See “Notes on a Collection of Ancient Eskimo Skulls,” Journ. Anthr. 
Inst., 1906. 
