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{175} Section III. Craniology. The
collection of skulls exhibited at the Congress of 1871 was in no wise
remarkable except for its poverty. The principal contribution of the
palaeolithic (Post Pleiocene) age was the (Colle del) Olmo skull from near Arezzo, now in the Royal
Museum Of Natural History, Florence: this CALVARIA or calotte was, as I have said, found in the
diluvial tyavertino. The (Isola del) Liri skull, also dolichocephalous, and
probably synchronous, was discovered in sand under a stratum of the same
concretionary deposit, 80 centimetres in thickness. The cubic contents of the
latter are laid down at only 1,306 cubic centimetres (= 79∙701 cubic
inches), showing a brain of 1,156 grams (= 2 pounds 8∙78 ounces); and the
likeness to the Engis skull has been generally remarked. The neolithic
specimens were more abundant. Two skulls from the Monte Tignoso cave, near
Leghorn ‑‑ one exceedingly brachycephalic (cephalic index 92), the
other {176} very dolichocephalic (cephalic index 71)
[footnote 1: Doctor
Paul Broca, the learned Secretary of the Anthropological Society of Paris (page
398, Sur la
Classification et la Nomenclature Céphaliques and the rest, Revue d' Anthropologie, established five several
groups: ‑‑
It is rare, he tells us, that the mean
cephalic index of a race, not including its deformities, natural or artificial,
descends to 71 or rises to 87, thus giving an écart of 16; the normal extremes being
respectively 65 and 92 (= 27)] ‑‑ show, during the second Stone Age, the existence
of the two distinct types still characterising the Italian race. It is an
observation generally made that the modern peoples of upper Italy are mostly
short headed, and the southerners long headed, whilst the two forms blend in
the Island of Elba, in modern Umbria, and in the Province of Rome, where,
however, the brachycephalic is said to be waxing rarer. The
Tignoso skulls are both small, with restricted, depressed, and narrow frontal
regions, and exaggerated occiputs. Two brachycephalic skulls from the Grotta di
Castello, on the Monte Pisano, beyond the Serchio, greatly resembled them,
although only the CALVARIAE remained. A third pair, from
the neolithic {177} Caverna delta Matta, fortunately had
lower jaws: one was of the dolichocephalic division (cephalic index 68), very
long, and flattened at the sides, a type found in Sardinia, but rarely on the
adjacent continent: the other was of the marked brachycephalic or Ligurian type
(cephalic index 84). To the latter people probably belonged the cannibals of the
Palmaria Island in the Gulf of Spezia: their remains have been ably described (Grotta de' Colombi) by Professor Giovanni
Capellini, a native of that place, who, at the early age of 34, has risen to be
Rector of the venerable University of Bologna. He it was who conceived the idea
of the Congress of Bologna, who has taken a leading part at every meeting of
the kind, and who had the moral courage to declare his belief (L' Antropofagismo in Italia all'
Epoca della pietra,
Gazzetta dell'
Emilia, numver
11, 1869) in the universal prevalence of cannibalism, and who consequently was
long regarded, with the usual inconsequence, as little better than a cannibal
himself. I am pleased to find in this savant, as in my distinguished friend, the anthropologist Professor
Carl Vogt, such efficient support for the theory which I formed and published
many years ago. It is still my conviction that anthrophagy has, {178} like polygamy and slavery, belonged to
all peoples at some epoch of their history; that cannibalism, like both the so
called patriarchal
institutions,
not only satisfied physical wants, but led to moral progress; that human
sacrifice ending in bestial sacrifice, which in turn has yielded place to the bloodless sacrifice; and thus that it was not
only beneficial to the state of society which recorded it, but it has also
tended to the progress and the development of mankind. The
only specimens of the Bronze Epoch were three skulls discovered in a sepulchral
cave of Monte Calamita (Elba); and they were described by Professor Vogt (Di alcuni antichi crani
rinvenuti in Italia.)
Those of the terramare of the Emilia, also bronze,
have not been found; but the kitchen middens of Modenese Gorzano yielded two of
Ligurian type, probably buried in subsequent times. Most
of these skulls and other synchronous finds (for example, the brachycephalic Mezzana Corte, and the
rest) have been commented upon by Cav. Dott. Giustiniano Nicolucci, the well
known craniologist, and the accomplished author of the volume Delle Razze Umane. According to him (L' homme pré‑historique en
Italie, Congrès, pages 233‑238), this palaeolithic {179} or early Quaternary man represented the
original and primitive type of the actual Italian races. The CRANIVM, here short, there long, was of small
capacity and solid thickness; the form was an ogival arch spreading out
posteriorly; the frontal region was low, narrow, and retreating, with prominent
and even connecting GLABELLAE; and an external crest, with
a corresponding internal channel, ran from the mid forehead to the centre of
the sagittal suture, whilst the FORAMEN MAGNVM abnormally approached the occiput. As the lower MAXILLAE are wanting in the earliest specimens,
it cannot safely be determined whether the race was prognathic or orthognathic;
but the strongly marked attachments for muscles show vigour accompanying short
stature. In
the earlier neolithic age, as we see by the two skulls from Cantalupo Mandela,
near Rome, there is considerable improvement; the crania, both long and short,
are less thick; the temporal region is higher, straighter, and broader, the
great FORAMEN is nearer the axis, and the
posterior as well as the anterior divisions are better proportioned. The
capacity and the contents, which in the Quaternary Liri skull were 1,306 cubic
centimetres and 1,156 grams, now {180} become 1,408 cubic centimetres (=85∙926
cubic inches) and 1,245 grams (= 2 pounds 11∙91 ounces). Both the skulls
above specified have a slight maxillary prognathism, corrected, however, by the
position of the teeth, which are set vertically in the ALVEOLI, and we have reason to believe that the
whole body had followed the progress of the head. In
the Bronze Age, as we see by the skulls from Torre della Maina and from Elba (Aethalia,
Ilva, an Etrurian State, according to Vergil, X, 173), the process of
development is not arrested; the bones again become thinner, the capacity is
1,500 cubic centimetres (= 91∙540 cubic inches), [Jeff Hill's footnote: c. c. i. PRO c. i.] and the contents 1,326 grams (= 2
pounds 14∙78 ounces); about the same, in all three points, as in the
modern man. Lastly, the Age of Iron shows the greatest removal from the
Quaternary peoples; and the types begin to distribute themselves into those of
the modern Italian areas, with modifications arising only from cosmic
conditions and mixture of blood. At
the Congress, Count Gozzadini exhibited a valuable series of 26 skulls, two
from Villanova and 24 from Marzabotto. Two of the former were prognathous,
possibly distorted by pressure; most of the latter were fragmentary, and all
showed brachycephalism {181} as well as dolichocephalism. Professor
Nicolucci (Sui
cranii rinvenuti nella Necropoli di Marzabotto e di Villanova), who recognised the two
types, the dolichocephalic being 63 to 37 of the other, having compared one CRANIVM from Villanova and three from
Marzabotto with undoubted Etruscan specimens (in his Antropologia dell' Etruria: Naples, 1869) decided that
the four former were non Etruscan. Having also failed, after equal study, to
detect any affinities with the Kelts of Cisalpine Gaul, he therefore concluded
that they belong to the men still holding Bolognese ground, that is, to the Italic
Umbri. This well known anthropologist, whose opinions carry great weight,
defended his Umbrian theory in two letters addressed to Count Gozzadini,
against the Etruscoligurian ideas of Professor Carl Vogt. The latter had judged
a skull from Villanova to be of Etruscan type, whilst he attributed those of
Marzabotto to the Ligurians (Sur quelques Crânes antiques trouvés en Italie, Bulletin de la Soc. Anthrop. de Paris, tom. I, série 2, fasc. 1);
but he also persisted, with Lagneau, in reviving the old theory of Baer (1839)
versus Andreas Retzius (1842), that the Etruscans were dolichocephals.
Professor Nicolucci's theory is discussed {182} by the learned Cav. Dott. Antonio
Garbiglietti, one of the first to call the attention of anthropologists to the
peculiarities of Etruscan type (page 39, Sopra alcuni recenti scritti di craniologia
etnografica dei
Dottori G. Nicolucci e J. Barnard Davis: Torino, tip. Favale, 1866). The
learned Professor Cav. Alberto Gamba (Special Report To The Royal Academy Of Medicine, Turin), after honourably
mentioning his brother anthropologist, declares di non potere abbracciare in modo assoluto
l' opinione del Nicolucci, e ciò perchè la differenza di forma, di proporzione
e di misure che i cranii Etruschi e quelli di Marzabotto e Villanova non sono
abbastanza pronunziati per dichiarare questi ultimi di stirpe più moderna. After offering reasons for
this conclusion, he adds: Se noi osserviamo lo specchietto dall' illustre dott. Nicolucci
presentato, noi vediamo che i cranii di Marzabotto e Villanova appartengono ad
una stirpe differente perfettamente dalla Celtica, e la differenza sta
principalmente nella forma, o tipo generale del cranio. Ma se osserviamo le
differenze dal Nicolucci notate fra i due cranii di Villanova e Marzabotto e
quelli Etruschi, io vi confesso ingenuamente, di non poterne sottoscrivere la
sentenza di separazione, nè di epoca storica, ne di stirpe. He {183} thus pronounces all to be of the same
race, guarding himself, however, by noting the insufficient number which had
come under his observation; and finally, he offers a wise caution concerning
the difficulty of determining the characteristics that distinguish the Etruscan
CRANIVM. A people which emigrated
from three different regions at various eras not determined by history and
which mingled with four older races, the Umbri, the Ligurians, the Osci, and
the Iapygian Volsci, perhaps even with the Cisalpine Keltogalli, cannot have
acquired the racial type of CRANIVM
without passing through centuries of change and the progressive development of
pacific institutions. He would therefore hold as characteristic only the crania
of the Twelve Cities of Middle Etruria during their most flourishing period 500
to 400 BC. On
the other hand, Professors P. Montegazza (Congrès, page 239) and A. Zannetti (page 166, Studi sui crani Etruschi. Arch. per l' Antrop. e la Etno.: Florence, 1871) compare,
and find a resemblance between, the Villanova and Marzabotto skulls and those
of Chiusi, Tarquinii, and well known Etruscan centres. But the former denies,
in the present obscurity of Italian ethnography, the right {184} of giving scientific definitions to the
racial elements which we call Umbrian, Etruscan, Roman. He cites the case of
Sardinia, where he made a fine collection, and which he carefully visited, not
neglecting even the smaller villages. Popular scientific opinion divides the
island into two zones, Latin in the north; in the south Arab, or rather
Semitic: yet he observed, without noticing other secondary elements, such as
Siculi, Catalans, and others, a distinctly Egyptian type, which extends even to
the neighbouring TERRA
FIRMA; whilst
the peasantry of the Cannobina Valley retain the characteristics of its old
colonists, the Romans. Professor Montegazza especially denies our ability to
deduce, in the actual state of science, the intellectual hierarchy of the brain
from the shape or size of the skull which contained it, and he concludes with
the sensible observation: Ou s' introduit la passion, la vérité se cache la figure de ses
deux mains. Not
a few have attempted to prove, I have said, that the Boian conquerors buried
their dead in the same cemeteries with the Etruscan. This funereal infiltration is generally rejected;
although the shapes of the swords, the forms of certain objects of luxury, and
even the mode of burial, {185} seem to prove an interchange or a
reciprocity of ideas between the Etruscans and the Gauls. The
THESAVRVS CRANIORVM (London, 1867) of my learned
correspondent Doctor J. Barnard Davis, a work of which I am glad to say that a Supplement has been issued, contains a
description of one Oscan and of two Etruscan CALVARIAE. The former is quasibrachycephalic, and
the very narrow forehead is a striking contrast with the typical Roman. Of the
latter pair, one (number 769) was found at Villanova; unfortunately, it is
imperfect: the second is by far the finest of the three (number 1,173, page 85,
accompanying the Etruscan inscription). This large CALVARIVM of a young woman, exhumed in 1857 near
Perugia, is exceedingly like an ancient Roman skull. The author records also
the remarks of Professor L. Calori, which are principally directed to oppose
the impression, derived from certain cases of prognathism, that the Etruscans
were allied to the Ethiopic races, and cites Doctor Antonio Garbiglietti's
study of an Etruscan skull, which exhibits on both sides the singularity of a
suture running along the lower edge of the OS IVGALE, and dividing the bone into two
portions. Regarding Professor Calori's Phoenician Origin Of The Etruscans ‑‑ I shall have {186} more to say of it ‑‑ Doctor Barnard
Davis considers that the opinion of such a competent and thoroughly honest
investigator deserves every consideration. The author of the THESAVRVS, however, has one good
example of an ancient Phoenician skull (number 1,174, page 86) from Sardinia,
and he seems to think that it does not agree very closely with the ancient
Etruscan. He mentions the fact that Doctor G. Nicolucci, who described and
figured the skulls in the Museum of Antiquities, Cagliari, classed them with
those of the Semites ‑‑ Arabs and Jews. Finally, he has an Oscan
skull (number 1,049, page 84) from Nola, strikingly distinguished from the
Roman by the narrowness of the frontal region. |
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Etruscan Bologna, A Study Part I. The Works Of Man.
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