The Australian aboriginal

by Herbert Basedow

In this primitive method of ascending trees, by which the head is thrown so far behind, we see also a likely explanation of the greater cervical curvature we have noticed in the aboriginal’s spine, when one compares it with the European’s. We might even venture to say that these processes originally brought about the lumbar curvature, and thereby laid the foundation to the acquisition of the erect posture, by means of which man learned to balance his head upon the vertical spinal column. Then the foot, which had been to a great extent modelled through his arboreal activities, stood man in good stead, and he began to walk erect between the trees.

The foot skeleton of the Tasmanian shows a peculiarity, in which it differs from that of the Australian on the mainland. Under normal conditions, the heel-bone of the Australian, and of the European as well, has a small elongation or process on the anterior side which separates the two adjoining small bones, the cuboid and the talus, from each other. But in the case of the Tasmanian the two small bones named lie in juxtaposition. This phenomenon is only occasionally noticed in Australian skeletons, and is quite exceptional in European; it is abnormal even in the anthropoids.

The Australian’s legs are often the subject of comment, if not ridicule; they are so thin and lanky. Even when the proportions of the chest and trunk as a whole are good, the legs usually remain unshapely. Even under the best of conditions, there is a paucity of flesh both in thigh and calf; the lower portions of the limbs are in the true sense of the word spindle-shanks.

Even the gluteal musculature is only moderately developed. Sedentary life and cosmetic culture seem to have been the principal factors at work in shaping this region in the modern European. Monkeys, on the other hand, show no considerable gluteal development at all. It would appear, therefore, that tree-climbing has not played a great role in developing these muscles, but seems rather to have influenced the growth of the deltoid muscle, which extends from the upper arm to the shoulder-blade and collar-bone, and of the big pectoral muscle.

The thigh-bone, although it is slender, like the rest of the long bones of the Australian, is abruptly dilated at its epiphyses, and, in that respect, differs considerably from the European femur, which widens gradually towards the extremities, in trumpet fashion. The Australian’s thigh-bone is more like the Neanderthal type, but the smallness of its head at once distinguishes it from the fossil. The slenderness of the shaft, together with the relative smallness of the condyles, brings the Australian femur nearer to the Pithecanthropus. Generally speaking, this bone is stronger in the Tasmanian than in the Australian.

One occasionally finds a strongly developed ridge or process in the upper portion of the Australian femur, which has been styled the third trochanter. At the lower extremity, the smooth depression on the anterior surface of the bone, between its condyles, is deep in the Australian and Tasmanian, and in that respect resembles the Neanderthal femur. The superior margin of the hyaline cartilage covering this depression is variable, and occasionally far exceeds the average European limit.

Among certain tribes of central and southern Australia, the tibia is often peculiarly flattened laterally, like a sword, whilst the anterior edge of the bone is remarkably prominent. This condition is known as platycnemia and has also been observed, quite frequently, in the skeletons of the extinct men of Europe and Egypt, and in the Negroid and Polynesian races.

Occasionally this platycnemic condition is associated with an exaggerated curvature of the anterior edge of the bone, a phenomenon which Dr. E. C. Stirling has described as camptocnemia. The popular name for it among bushmen is “Boomerang-Leg”; in some cases the tibia certainly has quite as large a curvature as some of the least bent of the familiar throwing sticks have.

In attempting to offer an explanation for this remarkable phenomenon, it is at the outset difficult to say to what extent it might be pathological, that is, the direct result of some constitutional disorder, like rickets, from which the individual, in whose shin-bone the curvature appears, might be suffering.