Abstract
Anthropometry of the Maya Indians.—In accordance with the policy of the Carnegie Institution (Washington) for making Chichen Itzá, Yucatan, a focal point for correlated research in the archæology, anthropology, linguistics, and biology of Yucatan, Dr. Morris Steggerda, of the Department of Genetics of the Carnegie Institution, has undertaken a study of the physical and physiological characters of the Maya of the villages in the neighbourhood of Chichen Itzá (Publication No. 434, Carnegie Institution). 77 males and 56 females were examined, also 135 children; but the report on the children will appear later. The average age of the male subjects was 30.6 years, of the females 28.8. They claimed to be pure Maya, and although probably no genetically pure Maya exists in Yucatan, they may be regarded as relatively pure, with not more than one-eighth to three-sixteenths Spanish blood. The average eye colour is dark brown, and of the hair, black. The stature is 155.2 cm. for males and 142.8 cm. for females, a range of 10–15 cm. less than United States Indians. Their arms are long in relation to the stature, the lower arm in particular being longer in relation to the whole arm than in the white. They have broad shoulders, being as broad as Plains Indians, who are considerably taller. The Maya is very broad-headed, the cephalic index being 85, the females being 1–2 per cent more than the males. The face is broad, the nasal index still leptorrhine, the ears long and narrow. The relative chest girth in the Maya is astonishingly great, being 56 per cent of stature in males arid 58 per cent in females, as against 53 and 55 per cent for whites and 51 per cent for negroes of both sexes. The teeth are very good, 42 per cent of 88 adults having perfect teeth. The pulse rate of the Indian is low and the metabolism high, when compared with whites and negroes.
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Research Items. Nature 130, 511–513 (1932). https://doi.org/10.1038/130511a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/130511a0