Page:The American Indian.djvu/379

Rh arising from transferences of the more doubtful examples from one class to the other. A convenient summary of the main characters for each is offered by Giddings: —

I.


 * Characteristics: black skin, dolichocephalic (long-headed), prognathic, woolly or frizzly-haired (cross-section of hair very elliptical).


 * Area of distribution: Australia and Africa south of the equator.

II.


 * Characteristics: fair skin, mesocephalic, orthognathic, straight or wavy hair (cross-section slightly elliptical).


 * Area of distribution: broad zone from Polynesia northwestward through southwestern Asia and northern Africa and most of the continent of Europe.

III.


 * Characteristics: yellow or red skin, brachycephalic (broad-headed), narrow-eyed, lank or straight-haired (cylindrical in cross-section).


 * Area of distribution: eastern Asia and western America, chiefly north of the equator along the semicircular shore-line of Asia and America.

This investigator regards the second or middle group as the main stem, the generalized ancestral stock, from which the other two diverged and specialized. The American aborigines are regarded as a diverging branch of the Asiatic group. This classification, therefore, assumes a genetic relation between its main division by selecting the Polynesian-European type as the generalized, or ancestral type. Unfortunately, in this case, as in most others, there is at hand no convincing proof. The grouping by hair and associated characters, has proved of great convenience and is in-so-far justified; but it cannot meet the needs of the case. Recently, Duckworth offered a morphological analysis of man upon the basis of which was proposed a different grouping. In this scheme, the generalized type is designated as the Eurasiatic, embracing almost the entire population of Europe, Asia, and the New World. It will be observed that in distribution, this type covers the greater part of the earth in one continuous mass. What remains are the minor outlying groups, as the Australians, Africans, Andamanese, Polynesians, etc., which are treated as diverging stems from the main body. The one new feature of