PLATE III.
ANCIENT PERUVIAN.
A skull with a singularly flat and retreating forehead, and projecting face.
The narrowness of the head, however, is not remarkable, and very slight
pressure, if any, has been applied to the frontal hone. The latter presents a
rounded ridge extending from the nasal hones backwards to the sagittal suture,
which elevation would probably have been obliterated if much compression had
been resorted to. On the other hand, a friend has suggested that this ridge may
be the result of compression itself, from ligatures which have pressed up the bones
proximate to the frontal suture of infancy; yet such a result could hardly have
followed unless the compression was ingeniously withheld from that part of the
forehead. Again, on plates XVII and LV of this work, two skulls are figured in
which this frontal ridge is as strongly developed as in any others in my possession,
and yet are obviously devoid of mechanical agency. Of the few skulls of ancient
Peruvians that have come under my notice, the larger number possesses this ridge
in a striking degree, and it is least obvious in those instances where the flattening
process is most evident, for example in plate V.
MEASUREMENTS.
Longitudinal diameter,
Parietal diameter,
Vertical diameter,
Frontal diameter,
Extreme length of head and face,
Inter-mastoid arch, .
Inter-mastoid line,
6.5 inches.
5.2 inches.
5.1 inches.
4.3 inches.
8.3 inches.
14.5 inches.
4. inches.