Races of man / by Sonia Cole.

  • Sonia Mary Cole
Date:
1965
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)

Credit: Races of man / by Sonia Cole. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    population was also replaced by round-heads during the Bronze Age. There was again an increase in dolichocephaly during the Early Iron Age and Roman periods, after which round-heads became common once more. In historic times, there has been a general tendency for skulls to become rounder, particularly in central and eastern Europe where this trend has been attributed to successive invasions of round-headed Mongoloids, the Huns, Avars, Turks, Tatars and Mongols. The general increase of round-heads must presumably be the result of natural selec tion, though the advantages are obscure. Huizinga (1958) concluded that brachy- cephalization may be the result of a kind of arrested development. The position of the point of greatest breadth, attained at the age of 9 months, shifts with age; after 9 months, the skull undergoes a phase of secondary long-headedness. Huizinga considers that the present 'infantile' trend towards round-headedness will in the future develop in the direction of a secondary phase of long-headedness, rather than towards increasing brachycephalization. The Face The facial index is less useful than the cephalic index as a racial criterion in living populations as it is affected by function, as well as by age and sex. Men usually have longer faces than women of the same race because their jaws are heavier and deeper, the upper lip is longer and the chin is more powerful. Strong-jawed people usually have broad faces, as well as long ones. Long faces may also be associated with an over-active pituitary gland, while short, broad faces are some times due to thyroid deficiency. The facial index is the length of the face from the root of the nose to the bottom of the chin, expressed as a percentage of the greatest breadth across the cheek-bones. Facial indices on the living head are as follows: Broad—less than 85 Medium—85-88 Narrow—more than 88 Mongoloids have the broadest faces, Caucasoids the narrowest. Negroids are characterized more particularly by prognathism, a protrusion of the jaws which causes the whole face to jut forward; this condition is also found typically in the Australoids, in many types of early man, and also in the great apes. A straight or orthognathous face is most marked in Caucasoids. b
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