On the people of the long barrow period / by George Rolleston.

  • George Rolleston
Date:
[1875]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the people of the long barrow period / by George Rolleston. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    heiglat, as against a height of but 4 feet 10 inches attained to by the female. The average difference between the statures of males and females in civilised races is about half this amount, whilst a precisely similar disproportion is observable at the present day between the stature of individuals of tlie two sexes amongst savages.* The clavicles show the disproiiortionate smallness of the females even more strikingly than the bones already alluded to. Professor Busk has recorded the small size and delicate form of the clavicles from the Gibraltar caves.f To the relative size of the skulls in the two sexes in prehistoric * The late Sir Andrew Smith, K.C.B., informed me, that from extousire observations, carried on for a period of seventeen years, in South Africa, he could assure me that the Amakosa KalHrs to the eastward of the colony averaged near 5 feet 8J- inches, women 5 feet i inch. (See “ Archceologia,” 1870, vol. xlii. p. 457, where I put this observation, and a number of other measurements bear- ing upon this point, on record.) Gustav Fritsch, in his work, “ Die Eingeborenen Slid Afrikas,” s. 17, gives 171'8 cm. (5 feet inches) as the average stature of men of that race of KaiTirs just mentioned, and at p. 24 he says of the females: “Pdegen die weiblichen Individuen in der Enl.wickelung den mannlichen nach- stehen was wohl in der unterdriickten politischen Stellung der Frauen seinen Grund hat; ” but he does not give their exact stature. At p. 21G this author says, “Die Frauen der Ova-herero erscheinen in gleicher V/eise wie der ubrigen Slid Afrikanischen Nigritier in Vergleich mit den Miinnern unbedeutend,” and at p. 277 he gives 160 4 cm. (5 feet 3 inches) for the average stature of ten male Hottentots, as against 144’2 (4 feet 8 inches) for the average attained from measuring four females of the same tribe. When, however, the stature of the male members of a race falls as low as that just given for the female Hottentot, the stature and other dimensions of the sexes appear to be nearly identical. This is the case with the Bushmen (see p. 398, ^.c.). The measurements, however, given by Weisbach in the Anthropological part of the “ lieise von Novara,” 18G7, p. 21G, do not show that the discrepancy between the stature of the sexes of savage races rises in a direct proportion with their savagery, the greatest difference put there upon record being that between Java men, 1G79 mm., and Java women, 14G1'2, and amounting to 8.^^ inches, whilst the difference recorded between Australian men and Australian women is only 65 mm. (2^ inches). A similar disproportion, and one even greater than that recorded by Weisbach for the Javanese males and females, has been reported to me, as the rule amongst the Japanese ; whilst, on the other hand, a “ Report on the Aborigines of Victoria,” 1859, p. 45 {cit. Davis, “Thesaurus Craniorum,” p. 364), gives 5 feet 6 inches as the average height of eleven Australian men, as against 4 feet lOJ^ inches of an Australian woman. (See, however, Davis, “ Phil. Trans.” for 1868, p. 524.) The honourable position assigned to, or obtained by, the female sex amongst the Germanic races may bo considered as testified to by the near approach to equality in stature which, even in ancient times (see “Smith’s Dictionary of Gcog.,” Art. ‘ Germania’) was observed to exist between the sexes. Likarzig, however, most surely under- estimates the difference when, in part following Quetelet and Bednar, he gives, in his great work, “ Das Gesetz des Wachsthumes,” p. 4, Taf. i., ii., iii., iv., 175 cent. (68 899 inches) as the average male stature, and 173 cent. (67T11 inches) as the average female stature. The rationale of all this lies in the earlier attain- ment of puberty by the female sex in our species, and the consequent early con- signment of the females, in savage varieties of it, to child-bearing and hard labour. Mr. Dobson’s paper on the “ Andamans and Andamanese,” published in the preceding number of the Journal of this Institute, p. 457, nirnishes a good illustration of this principle. (See es|)eeiaUy Plate xxxi.) t “ Trans. Internat. Congress Prehjst. Archaeology,” 1869, p. 168.
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