Abstract
A SKULL OF PAPUAN TYPE FROM COLOMBIA.—In L'Anthropologie, T. xxxiv., No. 5, Dr. R. Verneau directs attention to a close resemblance between the skull of a Tunebo Indian and Papuan skulls, particularly skulls from the island of Mallicolo (New Hebrides). Not only is the general morphological resemblance remarkable, but the absolute measurements are extremely close. The cranial index in each case is 69, and both are hypsicephalic. The maximum transverse diameters vary by three millimetres only, the vertical diameters by one millimetre, and the maximum antero-posterior diameters are identical. In both cases the frontal region is narrow. The chief difference is that the Tunebo skull has a higher cranial capacity, 1775 c.c. as against 1550 c.c. in the Mallicolo crania, probably an individual variation. Where in other respects it varies from the Mallicolo characters, it approaches those of other Papuan crania. Notwithstanding the danger which attaches to conclusions drawn from a single specimen, it appears reasonable to conclude that the Tunebo skull belongs to the Papuan type. Ten Kate and Rivet have demonstrated that traces of the early type of S. American man represented by the Lagoa Santa skulls are to be found from Southern California to Patagonia, while de Quatrefages and, later, Rivet pointed out the close resemblance of this type to the hypsistenocephalic type of Melanesia and Australia. The importance of the Tunebo skull is that it is the first of the type to be found in the Eastern Andes and supplies a link hitherto missing between examples of the type on the Atlantic and Pacific sides of the continent.
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Research Items. Nature 114, 656–658 (1924). https://doi.org/10.1038/114656a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/114656a0