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many, especially in Bohemia, and numerous light" islands" in the extreme south of this large area.

The maximum of frequency of the darks is seen along the Mediterranean coast, in Corsica, along the Pyrenees, and

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Distribution of the Colour of the Hair in France; from Topinard. The eighty-eight Departments are divided into four equal groups.

also in Auvergne. This conforms perfectly to what is known of the primitive location of a dark population in the basin and islands of the Mediterranean before the Aryan. invasion. From other sources we know that there was a mixed dark population in France before the fair barbarians

came from the north-east to overlord the earlier inhabitants of France; but colour maps alone do not serve to distinguish between these earlier peoples. A further analysis will be made when dealing with head-form.

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Resultant of the Two Preceding Maps; from Topinard.

The map of combined hair and eye colours marks the descent of the fair invaders down the valley of the Rhone, in the direction of Upper Italy. Other irregularities of distribution and the various "islands," such as the departments of Vendée (75) and Charente-Inférieure (36) in the west, Tarn (54) and Tarn et Garonne (59) in the south, and

Jura (8) and Drôme (22) in the east, can be explained by local historical events. Topinard asks whether the fair "island" of Charente-Inférieure is due to the English, to the Protestants around La Rochelle (the majority of whom should be fair), or to the immigration of the Alans? The Alans, or Alani, were Scythian people, with red hair and grey eyes, who joined themselves with the Vandals. They occupied the middle course of the Loire in 451 A.D.' Collignon, however, does not find Charente-Inférieure particularly fair, and he cannot satisfy himself that any trace exists of the Alans, about whom we know really very little.

Topinard fully recognises that the departments are purely administrative divisions which have no ethnological significance, but it is very convenient to take the departments as statistical units, as they are of a sufficient size to give the broad features of the distribution of hair and eye colouration. The significance of the distribution has, of course, no relation whatever to the departments themselves. Here also, as in Britain, a more detailed survey in selected districts will give most interesting and suggestive results, the interpretation of which can best be worked out by a careful study of the local history, both prehistoric and documental. For France such detailed anthropological investigations have been carried out by Dr. R. Collignon in a very thorough and suggestive manner. His methods are so valuable that

a chapter will be devoted to an abstract of his studies in the Dordogne district.

1 G. de Mortillet, Formation de la Nation Française, 1897, p. 122.

CHAPTER III

VALUE OF HEAD-FORM IN ANTHROPOLOGY

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O much attention has been paid by anthropologists to the shape of the head, and particularly to that of the skull, that the greater part of the literature of physical anthropology is taken up with minutely descriptive and statistical accounts of the contours and measurements of skulls.

It is obvious enough why the skull has been so minutely studied. Although most parts of the human skeleton exhibit distinctive traits by which they can be readily distinguished from the bones of other animals, the more characteristic human tendencies are, however, so to speak, focussed in the skull. For example, the bones of the legs and the pelvis have become modified owing to the assumption of the erect attitude; but the position of the large hole (the foramen magnum) in the base of the skull, through which the spinal cord passes into the brain, and the balancing of the head on the vertebral column, attest to the same fact.

The acquisition of the erect attitude liberated the hand from progression, and this gave it the chance to become the delicate and mobile mechanism that we now possess, and which is especially marked in the case of musicians, artists, and skilled workmen. The "handiness" of the hand relieved the jaws from much of the work that they were wont to do, and as a consequence the human jaw has a marked tendency to be reduced in size.

Thus two very characteristic human traits, the erect posture and the hand, have influenced the skull.

The other essentially human characteristics are mainly to be found in the head itself; of these the most important is the brain. The absolute and relative large size of the brain at once separates the brain of man from that of the higher apes. This character can be determined from an examination of the skull without any special anatomical knowledge.

It.is convenient in considering the skull to distinguish between the cranium, or brain case, and the face. The latter is composed of the organs of sight and hearing, with their protective casings, and the jaws.

The cranium and the face can, to a certain extent, be studied independently of each other, though there is always a distinct relation between them, and the one acts upon the other in various ways.

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Among the lower races of men we find that the jaws are usually of large size, and they often project far beyond the level of the forehead. A skull in this condition is called “prognathous,” a term which has been rendered," as Huxley points out, " with more force than elegance, by the Saxon equivalent-snouty.'"' An example of this prognathism is seen in the negro's skull (Fig. 8, No. 4).

These great jaws are associated with large teeth and powerful muscles. The jaw or masseter muscles arise from the side walls of the skull, and are inserted in the lower jaw. The more powerful the muscles the higher they creep up the sides of the skull, their upward limit being marked by a curved line (the temporal crest), and the more they are likely to compress the skull, especially immediately behind the orbits. This lateral compression of the temporal region of

'T. H. Huxley, "Man's Place in Nature: III. On Some Fossil Remains of Man," Collected Essays, vol. vii, p. 191.

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