FOOTNOTES:
[148] See writer's "Relation of the Size of the Head and Skull to Capacity in the Two Sexes," Am. J. Phys. Anthrop., 1925, VIII, No. 3.
[149] All measured de novo by my aide, T. D. Stewart; for procedure see my "Anthropometry."
ADDITIONAL REMARKS ON CRANIAL MODULE
Before we leave this subject, it may be well to point out two noteworthy facts apparent from the data on the northwestern and northeastern groups. The first is that the figures on both sexes from Barrow and Point Barrow are very nearly the same, suggesting strongly the identity of the people of the two settlements; and the Point Hope group is in close relation. The second fact is the curious identity of the old Igloo group, 8 miles southwest of Barrow, with the Greenlanders. The import of this will be seen later.
SKULL SHAPE
Utilizing the materials of the Otis and Barnard Davis Catalogues and with measurements taken for him on additional specimens in several of our museums, Boas, in 1895 (Verh. Berl. anthrop. Ges., 398), as already mentioned, reported the cranial index of 37 "western Eskimo" skulls of both sexes (without giving localities or details) as 77. He also reports in the same place (p. 391) the cephalic index of 61 probably male living "Alaska Eskimo," again without locality, as 79.2. These rather high indices and the relatively elevated stature (61 subjects, 165.8 centimeters) lead him to believe (p. 376) that both are probably due to an admixture with the Alaskan Indian, though the report contains no measurements of the latter.
The data that it is now possible to present may perhaps throw a new light on the matter. As was already seen in part from the data on the living, the head resp. the skull tends to relative shortness and broadness throughout the southwestern, midwestern, and Bering Sea region (excepting parts of the Seward Peninsula). Important groups in this region, particularly those on some of the islands, had little or no contact with the Indian. The cranial index in most of the groups of the southwestern and midwestern Eskimo equals or even exceeds that of the Indian. And Eskimo groups with a relatively elevated cranial index are met with even in the far north, as at Point Hope, Hudson Bay, and Smith Sound.[150] Finally, the shorter and broader head connects with that of the Asiatic Eskimo and that of the Chukchee, as well as other northeastern Asiatics.[151]
The records now available show the highest cranial indices to occur on the coast between Bristol Bay and the Yukon and on lower Yukon itself, while the lowest indices of the midwest area, though still mesocranic, occur in the aggregate of Nunivak Island and the mouths of the Yukon. Another geographical as well as somatological aggregate is that of the people of the St. Lawrence and Diomede Islands and of Indian Point, Siberia, the cranial index in these three localities being identical.
| Southwestern and midwestern | |
|---|---|
| (11) | |
| Togiak | 80.1 |
| (13) | |
| Hooper Bay | 79.7 |
| (10) | |
| Mumtrak | 79.6 |
| (6) | |
| Pilot Station, Lower Yukon | 79.3 |
| (5) | |
| Chukchee (Siberia) | 78.6 |
| (26) | |
| Nelson Island | 78 |
| (6) | |
| Southwestern Alaska | 77.7 |
| (32) | |
| Indian Point (Siberia) | 77.4 |
| (12) | |
| Little Diomede Island | 77.4 |
| (299) | |
| St. Lawrence Island | 77.2 |
| (5) | |
| Port Clarence | 76.6 |
| (34) | |
| Pastolik and Yukon Delta | 76.1 |
| (14) | |
| St. Michael Island | 75.7 |
| (116) | |
| Nunivak Island | 75.6 |
| Northwestern | |
| (222) | |
| Point Hope | 76.0 |
| (3) | |
| Kotzebue Sound and Kobuk River | 75.4 |
| (22) | |
| Shishmaref | 74.5 |
| (101) | |
| Point Barrow | 74.1 |
| (73) | |
| Barrow | 73.5 |
| (33) | |
| Wales | 73.5 |
| (7) | |
| Golovnin Bay | [152]72.6 |
| (52) | |
| Igloos, southwest of Barrow | 69.7 |
| Northern and northeastern | |
| (7) | |
| Hudson Bay and vicinity | 76.3 |
| (9) | |
| Smith Sound | 76.2 |
| (15) | |
| Southampton Island | 74.8 |
| (15) | |
| Northern Arctic | 73.6 |
| (33) | |
| Baffin Land and vicinity | 73.2 |
| (101) | |
| Greenland | 71.9 |
The Seward Peninsula shows sudden differences. There are a few localities along its southern coast where the cranial type belongs apparently to the Bering Sea and southern area. One site at Port Clarence was one of these. But already at Golovnin Bay, which is not far from Norton Sound and St. Michael Island, and according to the evidence of the most recent collections (Collins 1928), also at Sledge Island, there is a sudden appearance of marked dolichocrany, which is repeated at Wales, on the western extremity of the peninsula, approached at Shishmaref, the main Eskimo settlement on its northern shore, and, judging from some fragmentary material seen at the eastern end of the Salt Lake, also in the interior. The cause of this distinctive feature in the Seward Peninsula is for the present elusive. The little known territory urgently needs a thorough exploration.
The distribution of the cranial index farther north along the western coast shows several points of interest. The first is the exceptional position of Point Hope, one of the oldest and most populous settlements in these regions, which by its cranial index seems to connect with the Bering Sea groups. The second is the closeness, once more, of Barrow and Point Barrow. The third and greatest is the presence, in a small cluster of old igloos 8 miles down the coast from Barrow, of a group of people that finds no counterpart in its cranial index and, as will be seen later, also in some other characteristics, in the entire western region; in fact, in the whole Eskimo territory outside of Greenland. As noted before, the size of the head in this group is also closest to that of Greenland. These peculiar facts indicate a problem that will call for separate consideration.
The northern and northeastern groups, with the exception of the mesocranic Hudson Bay and Smith Sound contingents, and the very dolichocranic Greenlanders, show dolichocrany much the same as that of Barrow and Point Barrow.