Abstract
THE EABLY RACES OF AMERICA.—Dr. Etienne B. Renaud has published in the University of Colorado Studies, vol. 16, pt. 1, the results of an examination of two small series of skulls, one from La Plata (Colorado) and one from Canon del Muerto (Arizona), and a comparison with other skulls from the southwest United States and from South America. The skeletal material in question is of the highest importance, not only because examples are few, but also because of its relation to the results which are now emerging from the study of the archaeology of the area on scientific lines. The skulls belong to the second of the three phases in culture into which archaeologists are differentiating the Indian civilisation of the southwestern area of North America. These are, first, the earliest nomadic population, of which practically nothing is known, representing a late palaeolithic stage; secondly, the basket-makers, representing the mesoiithic culture; and, thirdly, the pueblo cliff-dwellers, a full neolithic phase, whom the Spaniards disturbed in their normal development. Of the two latter, the basket-makers were a dolichocephalic people with undeformed head, the pueblos a brachycephalic people who deformed artificially the back of the head. The two series of skulls under review belong to the basket-makers, and, apart from certain local variations, agree sufficiently in their ten characteristics here examined to warrant their being regarded as of the same race—a race which further comparison with other skeletal material reveals as a common south-western type for which as an ethnical and cultural entity the name basket-maker is suggested provisionally. The significance of this conclusion is enhanced when it is shown that this type is sufficiently cognate to warrant inclusion with the Lagoa Santo group of South America, for which Dr. Rivet and others have suggested a kinship with Melanesia and Papua—a kinship for which Dr. Rivet has argued further on linguistic grounds.
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Research Items. Nature 121, 257–259 (1928). https://doi.org/10.1038/121257a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/121257a0