Page:American Anthropologist NS vol. 22.djvu/253

 SULLIVAN] THE FOSSA PHARNYGEA 241

TABLE IV. Continued.

GROUPS IN WHICH NO PHARYNGEAL FOSSAE WERE FOUND Group Number of Crania Examined

Isle of Titicaca, Bolivia 64

Isle of Cojato, Bolivia 2

Bolivia, Chujun Paki 95

Bolivia, Lluchini Amaya 18

Bolivia, Belen Chullpa 8

Bolivia, Churkoni Chullpa - 55

Bolivia, Tiahuanaco 3

Cape Horn 3

Total 1079

TABLE V

TOTAL FREQUENCY OF FOSSA PHARNYGEA IN AMERICAN CRANIA

Total Crania Examined Total Crania with Fossa Per cent of Crania with Fossa

251? 88 3-5

I have not much non-American material at my disposal but the small amount available suggests that the fossa pharyngea occurs with a much greater frequency in some areas than in others. Out of five crania from New Hebrides two have the fossa pharyngea well marked. Two out of four crania from the Solomon islands have it also. The number of cases are too small to permit any valid conclusions but suggest a high frequency. In a series of thirty Hindu crania and forty Bedouin-Samaritan crania the fossa pharyngea was not found.

Turning to the 'American material I first became interested in the fossa pharyngea during the study of a group of Basket-maker crania from Grand Gulch, Utah. About twenty- five percent of the crania examined showed a larger or smaller fossa pharyngea. A little later I encountered it again in some Mexican Indian crania. Hrdlicka 1 also found it in his examination of California Indian crania.

I then decided to examine all the Indian and Eskimo crania in the collections of the American Museum of Natural History. The results are tabulated in Tables I to v. Considering the crania as a whole the fossa pharyngea is not of very frequent occurrence in the American Indian and Eskimo. Of the 2517 crania examined it was present in 88 of them or 3.5 percent of the cases. This per-

��1 Hrdlicka, 1906.

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