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of Charente and Haute-Vienne and passing not far to the east of Périgueux, would separate the fertile district to the west from the poor lands to the east. At certain points in the latter, as in the Limousin, the valleys are rich, but the uplands are infertile, and produce only chestnuts and scanty cereals.

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The physical features of the population studied by Dr. Collignon are mainly those of the conscripts for the xiie Corps d'armée, who are recruited from these five Depart

ments.

The characters are given in the order of importance that Dr. Collignon allocates to each.

CEPHALIC INDEX.

This index is the ratio of the breadth of the head to its greatest length, the latter being taken as 100. In dealing with skulls, anthropologists usually arrange the indices in three groups: (1) Dolichocephals, with an index of less than 75; (2) Mesaticephals, with an index between 75 and 80; (3) Brachycephals, having an index of over 80. It is the practice of some anthropologists to deduct two units from the corresponding index of the living head so as to reduce the cephalic to the cranial index.

There is a tendency at present not to lay too much stress upon these purely empirical divisions, and some would raise the upper limit of dolichocephaly two or three units.

The following table gives the distribution of the cephalic indices in the five Departments; in the case of Dordogne a further analysis is made, which proves that the southern part of that Department is much more brachycephalic than the northern. The mean index of this Department, if alone considered, gives extremely little information.

CEPHALIC INDEX-PROPORTION PER CENT.

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It is evident that this table indicates considerable differences in the ethnic constitution of each Department. Taking the extremes, we have, on the one hand, North Dordogne with its 8.5 per cent. of indices below 75, or Charente with 5.7 per cent. and only .5 per cent. of ultrabrachycephals, and Corrèze on the other, which has no dolichocephal below 75, but has 8.1 per cent. of indices over 90.

Taken as they stand, the great majority of these indices fall into the brachycephalic division, while very few are dolichocephalic.

The mean index of the French population being 83.57, Dr. Collignon, in order to simplify matters, describes as brachycephals those indices above 83. The cantons which come under this grouping form a compact mass to the south and south-east, as is seen in the map on the following page. To the north there are two islands in which the index does not exceed 83.8.

Inversely, and as a matter of convenience, he regards as dolichocephalic all the regions in which the index is less than 80. Two large groups of dolichocephalic cantons are isolated by this means; the more important covers two-thirds of the Department of Dordogne (the valleys of the Isle and of the Dronne), and about one-half of Charente, mainly to the south and south-east. The other has Limoges for a centre and the seven cantons that surround it.

In the narrow band of country between these two groups the index is 81.

This clearly defined distribution is of the greatest importance, for alone it provides a key to the local ethnography.

Another point not less worthy of attention is the clear manner in which these two head types are separated: (1) between the two Departments of Dordogne and Corrèze; (2) between the two portions of Dordogne which are separated by the rivers Vézère and Dordogne.

As a matter of fact the boundary between the two Departments of Dordogne and Corrèze was formerly precisely that between Périgord and Limousin, and in earlier times between the Petrocorii and Lemovices. To the right of this entirely conventional frontier the indices run from 85.4 to 87.3, while to the left they vary from 78.7 to 81.4, but there

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The Distribution of the Cephalic Index in the Dordogne District;
after Collignon.

Areas with an index of less than 80, shaded; those between 80 and 83,
left blank; those over 83, cross-hatched.

is nothing in history to explain this discrepancy. The explanation appears to be that well before the Conquest the two peoples differed in race, the one being what Cæsar called

Celts, the other probably belonging to the people whom he named Aquitainians.

The southern portion of Dordogne is also brachycephalic and Celtic, and so Dr. Collignon is inclined to think that it did not form part of the territory of the Petrocorii, but that it should be divided among the Nitiobriges and Cadurci, whose equally brachycephalic descendants still people Lotet-Garonne and Lot.

Another line of evidence supports this conclusion. It is known that the primitive episcopal dioceses corresponded to the territories of the ancient Roman civitates, since a bishop was established in each city by the emperors. Whilst the northern, eastern, and western frontiers of the diocese of Périgueux correspond very closely with those of the modern Department, the region south of the Vézère belongs to the Bishop of Cahors, which tends to show that the natives of the south of Dordogne are the descendants not of the Petrocorii, but of the Cadurci.

The differences between the two parts of Limousin, of which the one forms part of Corrèze and the other the south of Haute-Vienne, can be explained in an analogous manner. The former is brown and brachycephalic, while the latter is fair and dolichocephalic.

One may well believe that the Lemovices, those of the neighbourhood of Limoges, were no more Petrocorii than Celtæ, but a fair people of Belgic or Germanic origin, established in Celtica, who had overlorded the ancient brachycephalic people who there preceded them.

Inversely, Briva-Curetia, another old Gaulish town of Limousin, was the centre of gravitation of the first inhabitants, if not their capital.

In Charente there is only one canton in which the mean index rises over 83. In this canton of Chabanais is the small village of Chassenom on the left bank of the Vienne.

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