In the nose and its aperture, we again recognize primitive characteristics of considerable importance in the Australian. We have already had occasion to notice how deeply the root of the external organ seems to be retracted under the great glabellar prominence of the forehead. A bridge in the true sense of the word seems wanting, the nose consisting of a flabby body at its point, above which lies a saddle-shaped depression sloping imperceptibly into the retracted root beneath the forehead. Not uncommonly one finds a number among the males of all tribes whose noses are curved and give one the impression of Jewish features; the type is rare among women ([Plate VI], 2).
The breadth of the nose is very great, and consequently the nasal aperture in Australian skulls is of corresponding dimensions. The width of the aperture often actually exceeds thirty millimeters.
It must not be supposed that these features are quite peculiar to the Australian; they are also present in the fossil skulls of Europe. If then we regard the latter as the ancestral stock, from whom modern peoples have sprung, and, at the same time, recollect that diverse admixtures of strain might have taken place periodically, it would not be amiss to expect indications of such primitive nose developments in the higher types of man. That such do occur, we can every day verify for ourselves.
Apart from being a racial characteristic, the flat broad nose is cultivated by many of the tribes. Mothers artificially flatten the noses of their children when quite young by pressing upon them with their fingers, and often repeating the process. It is, therefore, often difficult to say whether a specially flat nose is natural or is the result of cosmetic culture. The wearing of a bone or stick through the septum would also tend to flatten and widen the organ to an abnormal extent ([Plate VI]).
The nasal aperture of a modern European skull almost invariably has sharp lateral margins, which unite at the base behind a prominent bony spine; for reasons which will become apparent below, we shall call this the inner boundary. In an anthropoid, like the gorilla, however, the cavity is bounded on its lower side by two ridges, which enclose a groove in front of the large aperture. Converging upwards, these ridges, on either side, unite to form the lateral margins below the nasal bones. In the monkeys there is no indication of a well-defined boundary at all, the lower surface of the cavity appearing more or less smooth, whilst the spine, so prominent in man, is barely recognizable.
In the Australian skull we often find an interesting transition stage connecting these extremes, the inner margin being present but associated with a pre-nasal groove at the base of the aperture. Indeed, the sharp lateral margin is often found to pass into a pre-nasal ridge which forms the anterior margin of the groove. Such a condition is of considerable interest, since it recalls a stage in our evolution, when the nose was closely connected with the mouth part; that is to say, that a portion now absorbed into the modern skull was originally the floor of the nose, and helped to build up the alveolar process of the upper jaw.
In fact, we are reminded of this condition when we look upon the living aboriginal; for his nose seems to ride upon the upper portion of his mouth, to which it seems rigidly attached, after the pattern of an animal’s snout. We see the same sort of thing in the European embryo during the first few months of gestation.
This “primitive snout” is made the more conspicuous in the Australian on account of the strong naso-labial folds in the skin, one of which, on either side, encloses the angle of the mouth in a semi-circular fashion. With us Europeans, the elevating processes which our nose has undergone have tended to reduce the depth of these folds, in the upper portions at any rate. This elevating process, by the way, has largely been in consequence of the recession our mandibular skeleton has suffered ([Plate V]).
The jaws of the Australian are, like those of most of the fossil skulls and of the Negroids, protubefent—a condition known as prognathism. In the Tasmanians, too, the strong development of the jaws, and of the teeth, has resulted in a general fullness of the same region ([Plate III], 2).
In aboriginal infants, one often finds the bony process, upon which the teeth subsequently grow, to be directed forwards, almost in a straight line with the floor of the nose. This hereditary predisposition towards a horizontal development of the alveolar region reminds one forcibly of features belonging to the anthropoid apes.