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I.—Craniological Observations on the Lengths, Breadths, and Heights of a Hundred Australian Aboriginal Crania

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 September 2014

A. W. D. Robertson
A. W. D. Robertson*
Affiliation:
Anatomy Department of the University of Melbourne.
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Extract

The present work forms the first portion of an investigation into the craniological characters of the Australian aboriginal crania at present being conducted by the author, and is part of a general scheme for the osteological investigation of the Australian aboriginal initiated by the Professor of Anatomy in the University of Melbourne.

There are, as is well known, two methods of treating craniometric statistics, and which, for convenience, may be designated (1) The Empirical Method; (2) The Rational Method.

The object aimed at in both is to find numbers that shall be characteristic of the race of any country.

“The Empirical method places very little value on the length and breadth of a skull except as a means of arriving at their ratio—the cephalic index—‘the subdivisions of which,’ says Gray (15), ‘are all arbitrary.’ Some, e.g. Retzius, made use of centres; others, e.g. Welcker, made use of limits, and there appears to be no special reason for fixing the limits of the groups at one index more than another. The analysis of craniometrical statistics by this method becomes comparatively simple: calculate the cephalic index and other indices for each individual, and find the average or mean index for the whole group of people measured. The highest and lowest index is usually stated as indicating the range of variation on each side of the mean. As the range of variation of the cephalic index is usually quite as great as the range of variation of the absolute dimensions, it is difficult to understand the belief in the value of indices of the Empirical school.”

Type
Research Article
Information
Proceedings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh , Volume 31 , 1912 , pp. 1 - 16
Copyright
Copyright © Royal Society of Edinburgh 1912

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References

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