[163] Approximately.
[164] Rudolf Virchow, as far back as 1870, in studying some mandibles of the Greenland Eskimo, found that the height of the body in the middle (3.5 centimeters) was greater than that of the lower jaws of any other racial group available to him for comparison. Archiv. für Anthrop., IV, p. 77, Braunschweig, 1870.
Strength of the Jaw
The Eskimo jaw is generally stout. Barring rare exceptions there is nothing slender about it. The body, moreover, is frequently strengthened by more or less marked overgrowths of bone lingually below the alveoli and above the mylohyoid ridge. These neoformations will be discussed later.
The strength of the mandible may be measured directly in various locations on the body. Due to the peculiar build of the body, however, and especially to its variations, these measurements are by no means simple and wholly satisfactory. It is hardly necessary in this connection to review the various attempted methods, none of which has become standardized. As a result of experience I prefer since many years to measure the thickness of the body of the jaw at the second molars, and that in such a way that either the molars, if the measurement is taken from above, or the lower border of the jaw if it is taken from below, lies midway between the two branches of the sliding calipers with which the measurement is taken. The two methods (from above or below) give results that are nearly alike. In some cases the one and in others the other is the easier, but wherever the teeth are lost the measurement from below is perhaps preferable. The records obtained on the lower jaws of the western Eskimo and other racial groups are given in the next table.
| Male | Female | Female versus male (M=100) | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Right side | Left side | Right side | Left side | |||
| (240) | (243) | |||||
| Western Eskimo | millimeters | 16.2 | 16.3 | 15.1 | 15.1 | 92.9 |
| (29) | (28) | |||||
| Florida Indians | do | 16.6 | 15.5 | 93.4 | ||
| (21) | (16) | |||||
| Louisiana Indians | do | 16.3 | 15.3 | 93.9 | ||
| (58) | (47) | |||||
| Arkansas Indians | do | 15.2 | 14.7 | 96.7 | ||
| (40) | (22) | |||||
| Kentucky Indians | do | 14.7 | 14.2 | 96.6 | ||
| (50) | (20) | |||||
| American whites (misc.) | do | 14.5 | 12.8 | 88.3 | ||
The figures show that the Eskimo jaw is very stout. It is exceeded in thickness only by the jaws of Florida, which in general are the thickest in America, and in males is about equaled, in females very slightly exceeded by those of the prehistoric Indians of Louisiana, who belong to the same Gulf type with the Indians of Florida. The old Arkansas Indians, though closely related to those of Louisiana, show a very perceptibly more slender jaw, particularly in the males; while in an old Kentucky tribe (Green River, C. B. Moore, collector) the jaws are still less strong. The lower jaws of the American whites (dissecting-room material) are slightly less stout than even those of the Indians of Kentucky in the males, and much less so in the females. The interesting sex differences are shown well in the last column of the above table.