HORN EXPEDITION— ANTHROPOLOGY. 
19 
grease, and, independently of special ceremonies, which will be dealt with in a 
separate section, the face and body, are often adorned with patterns done in the 
same mateiial or in yellow ochre, white clay or charcoal. A very common 
device is a broad band of one or other of these pigments across the bridge of the 
nose extending on to the cheeks. 
Platycnemia. Camptocnemia. 
On the journey northwards of the Horn Expedition I noticed at Crown 
Point a young girl of about fifteen years of age whose tibiie, or shin bones, 
presented a conspicuous and symmetrical anterior curvature (PI. 1, Fig. 1). 
This, as far as could be observed in the living body, was associated with a 
condition known as platycnemia, in which the tibiai are much flattened as if by 
lateral compression and, in a living person, the former condition has the efiect of 
giving an exaggerated idea of the latter by reason of the extreme prominence 
given to the anterior edge of the bones. 
This girl was ill-nourished, even to emaciation, but presented no other 
abnormalities of bones or teeth so far as could be discovered. Subsequently, 
when in the McDonnell Range districts, we came into more frequent contact with 
the blacks, I was surprised to find that the tibhe of a considerable number of 
them, both males and females, adults and young, presented the same peculiar bent 
conformation, the associated platycnemia being apparently also well-marked. 
This latter conformation has received some attention from an ethnological 
point of view, having been found in the tibiie of some of the lower races and, with 
varying frequency in different localities, in those of ancient man, notably in 
the bones of Cro-Magnon; a certain form of it is stated by Boyd Dawkins* to be 
not infrequent in the shin-bones of negroes. 
In the South Australian aborigines platycnemia is extremely common and 
often well-marked, most of the skeletons that have passed through my hands 
manifesting the peculiarity to a greater or less extent, while, with the exception 
of the skeleton of a man from Alice Springs, previously referred to, few of these 
exhibited an amount of anterior curvature that could be considered abnormal. 
It should, however, be stated that in this particular skeleton, which was the only 
one collected, the curvature is inconsiderable in comparison with that seen in 
many living subjects. 
Cave Hunting. \V. Boyd Dawkins, 
4a 
