Billeder på siden
PDF
ePub

skulls average 48.83; the total mean of the Chellian skulls being 49.36. The nasal index of some Merovingian skulls found at Champlieu descends to 47.58.

Amid all these variations one fact shines clear, that in all the Merovingian graves the nasal index is markedly above that of the earlier populations of France. The Franks then brought to the country, which received its name from them, a new nasal type. In any case it is certain that the Franks had a nasal index of over 48, consequently they were not leptorhine like the people of Western Europe, but mesorhine like the Mongolic peoples. They belonged to the whiteskinned, fair-haired, Teutonic race, but must be regarded as a distinct variety of it. There is no reason to believe that we have here traces of those remnants of the mesorhinic hordes of Attila who fled towards Pannonia.

Wherever they came from, or however they acquired their nose, the arrival of the Franks augmented in a marked manner the mean nasal index of the population of Southern Gaul.

We will now follow the modifications of the nasal index in later periods. Under the three Frankish kings Paris became the capital of Neustria. The aristocratic class congregated there and were so numerous as to escape better than elsewhere the effects of mixture. In the twelfth century the mean nasal index of the Parisians was still mesorhinic, but it had already descended from 48.87, the mean number of the Merovingians, to 48.25-an index that is nearly leptorhine. In the succeeding centuries it continued to diminish, and at present it has returned to the figure (46.81) that it had before the Frankish period, and the influence of the foreign race has now disappeared from the mean nasal index.

Concerning the nasal bones it may be noted that among

the white races they are usually arched and prominent; among the yellow races, the Malays, and the Negroes, they are flat. They are often, in addition, short and very broad among the Negroes, and frequently long and narrow among

[graphic][merged small]

The Lower Border of the Apertura Pyriformis of Orang-Utan; from Hovorka. the Chinese. The bridge of the nose is almost always flat in infants, and, as we have just seen, it usually remains so in the lower races, and it frequently also persists in this condition in women of higher races.

Lastly, I must draw attention to the variations that occur in the lower margin of the apertura pyriformis.

In the apes the floor of the nasal cavity passes insensibly on to the surface of the upper jaw, and there is consequently no definite inferior border to the nasal aperture. This condition may obtain among human skulls, and it is known by the name of simian groove.

Of more frequent occurrence than the last is the condition which is characteristic of the human infant, in which the floor of the nasal chamber passes by a variable but distinct angle on to the surface of the maxilla. This is termed the forma infantilis.

The characteristic human condition is that in which the lower border of the pyriform aperture is formed by a distinct thin ridge which sharply cuts off the floor of the nasal cavity from the alveolar portion of the maxilla. This is the forma anthropina.

In some skulls there is a pair of depressions immediately external to the lower border of the apertura pyriformis. These are known as the fossæ prenasales.

FIG. 15.

The Four Types of the Lower Border of the Apertura Pyriformis in Man; from Hovorka.

a. Forma Anthropina (Lower Austrian, 30 years old); b. Fossæ Prenasales (Bavarian, 49 years old); c. Forma Infantilis (child, 31⁄2 years old); d. Simian Groove (Javanese, 28 years old).

It frequently happens that a skull with a forma infantilis may be transitional between the simian groove on the one hand or between a forma prenasalis or a forma anthropina on the other. No well-defined limits separate these various conditions.

Hovorka' gives the following statistics concerning the distribution of these varieties among various peoples:

[merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small]

1 O. Hovorka (Edl. von Zderas), Die Eussere Nase, eine anatomisch-anthropologische Studie, Vienna, 1893. (This paper contains an extensive bibliography.)

Speaking in general terms one may say that the simian groove is most frequent in the Negroes, Australians, and the black races generally. The infantile condition is common among Negroes, the yellow races, and Southern Europeans. The fossæ prenasales are also frequent among the yellow races, while the forma anthropina is characteristic of the Northern Europeans.'

1 Since the above was in type, Professor A. Macalister has written a paper on "The Apertura Pyriformis" (Journ. Anat. and Phys., xxxii., January, 1898, p. 223), in which he describes these four conditions, to which he gives the following names: Orygmocraspedote (simian groove), Amblycraspedote (forma infantilis), Bothrocraspedote (fossæ prenasales), Oxycraspedote (forma anthropina).

I

CHAPTER V

THE ETHNOGRAPHY OF THE DORDOGNE
DISTRICT

HAVE previously alluded to the brilliant ethnographical work done by Dr. Collignon,' and I have made an abstract of his researches in the Dordogne District of West Central France in order to demonstrate the lines upon which such inquiries should be conducted, and to illustrate the results that follow from a blending of anthropological investigations with the records of history. We have here a very happy example of an anthropological analysis which supplies the data for a subsequent historical synthesis.

The region under consideration consists partly of the calcareous beds and partly of primitive rocks of the Central Plateau of France; the limiting line between them is shown on the map (Fig. 19); to the east it passes into the mountainous mass of Auvergne. The five Departments which constitute this region are traversed from east to west by the gradually decreasing elevations of the Limousin Mountains, which serve as barriers between the three basins of the Dordogne, or rather of its right affluents, the Dronne, Isle, Vézère, and Corrèze; of the Charente and of the left affluents of the Loire, the Vienne, Gartempe, Creuse, and Cher. A line running roughly north and south, starting at the junction

[ocr errors]

1 R. Collignon, Anthropologie de la France: Dordogne, Charente, Corrèze, Creuse, Haute-Vienne," Mém. Soc. d'Anth. de Paris (3), i., 1894.

« ForrigeFortsæt »