Let us now contrast the Igloo skulls with those of southern Greenland from the collection of the United States National Museum.[200] The size of the series is such that they are nicely comparable. And to the two is added a small recent series (A. H., 1926, and Collins, 1928), from Golovnin Bay and Sledge Island (Seward Peninsula).
| Males | Females | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Golovnin Bay and Sledge Island | Igloos | Greenland | Golovnin Bay and Sledge Island | Igloos | Greenland | |
| Number of specimens | (8) | (27) | (49) | (13) | (25) | (52) |
| Vault: | ||||||
| Length | 19.20 | 19.25 | 18.97 | 18.03 | 18.11 | 18.04 |
| Breadth | 13.70 | 13.30 | 13.61 | 13.36 | 12.72 | 12.98 |
| Height | 14.08 | 14.02 | 13.95 | 13.21 | 13.21 | 13.12 |
| Cranial index | 71.3 | 69.1 | 71.8 | 74.1 | 70.2 | 72 |
| Height-breadth index | 102.8 | 105.5 | 102.5 | 97.9 | 104.6 | 101 |
| Mean height index | 85.6 | 86.2 | 85.7 | 84.2 | 86.4 | 84.6 |
| Module | 15.66 | 15.52 | 15.51 | 14.87 | 14.72 | 14.72 |
| Face: | ||||||
| Menton-nasion height | 12.70 | 12.39 | 12.38 | 11.98 | 11.21 | 11.52 |
| Alveolar point-nasion height | 7.90 | 7.71 | 7.61 | 7.35 | 7.01 | 7.05 |
| Breadth | 14.29 | 14.16 | 14.05 | 13.25 | 13.08 | 13.03 |
| Facial index, total | 88.9 | 86.9 | 87.1 | 90.4 | 86.8 | 85.7 |
| Facial index, upper | 55.3 | 54.5 | 54.1 | 55.4 | 53.8 | 54.1 |
| Orbits: | ||||||
| Mean height | 3.65 | 3.62 | 3.64 | 3.58 | 3.47 | 3.55 |
| Mean breadth | 4.11 | 3.97 | 3.99 | 3.92 | 4.01 | 3.85 |
| Mean index | 88.8 | 91.3 | 91.4 | 91.2 | 91 | 92.4 |
| Nose: | ||||||
| Height | 5.58 | 5.45 | 5.24 | 5.15 | 5.02 | 4.99 |
| Breadth | 2.35 | 2.37 | 2.27 | 2.29 | 2.23 | 2.20 |
| Index | 42.1 | 43.6 | 43.3 | 44.5 | 44.4 | 44 |
A comparison of the Igloo and Greenland series shows striking similarities; hardly any two geographically separate groups originating from a single source could reasonably be expected to come nearer. The Igloo skulls are even narrower in the vault than the Greenlanders, which means so much farther away from the southwestern, midwestern, and Asiatic Eskimo; and offer a few other differences, but all these are of small moment, not affecting the essential relations of the two groups.
A comparison of the Igloo and Greenland series with the material from Golovnin Bay and Sledge Island shows also numerous similarities but with them some rather material differences. The differences are especially marked in the females, whose characteristics approach more those of the midwestern Eskimo, which suggests that an important proportion of them may have been derived from the latter. However, even the males tend to differ. Both sexes show absolutely a somewhat broader skull than that of the northerners; in both sexes the skull, as seen from the cranial module, is slightly larger in the Seward Peninsula series than in either of the other groups; but the principal differences are seen in the face, which in the Seward Peninsula group is perceptibly larger and especially higher than it is in either the Igloo or the Greenland series. The orbits also in the southerners are larger and the nose is slightly higher.
On the whole it may be said that the resemblance of the Igloo crania to those of Greenland is closer than that to either or both of the series of Golovnin Bay and Sledge Island. This suggests the possibility that a similar though not quite the same differentiation in the skull may have taken place both in the Seward Peninsula and in the far north; though the possibility of a derivation of any one of the three groups from any of the others can not be discarded. So far as the skull is concerned a definite solution of the identity of the Igloo material would have to be, it would seem, postponed to the future.
The used data on the Greenland Eskimo skulls agree closely with those of Fürst and Hansen (Crania Groenlandica, fol., 1915), and also with the much fewer and scattered records of Virchow, Davis, Duckworth, Oetteking, Pittard, etc.,[201] on Eskimo skulls from Labrador.
Stature and strength.—The bones of the skeleton of the Igloo series show the people to have been of good height and of above medium Eskimo robustness. The principal measurements are given below, together with the corresponding ones on the western and the Yukon Eskimo. The material is not all that could be wished for, either in numbers or representation, but it will suffice for rough comparisons. Regrettably nothing for comparison is available as yet from Greenland or other parts of the far northeast where we meet with long, narrow, and high skulls.