Szekessy Vilmos (szerk.): A Magyar Természettudományi Múzeum évkönyve 62. (Budapest 1970)

Bottyán, O.: The variations of the palatum with respect to sexual dimorphism I.

greater ones (in agreement with the statements cited above), meaning that the female palates are comparatively shorter than those of the males, but the sexual difference (1.16 per cent by Fig. 5, and 1.47 per cent by Fig. 6) can be qualified as insignificant, especially in view of the fact that the value of deviation can, on the basis of Fig. 5, be estimated at an order of magnitude of merely 8 per cent. The frequencies of the palatal index, grouped into males and females according to ALEXEIEV and DEBETS'S classification, and into the Avar Period and the Árpádian Age (as discussed in the introduction), are contained in Table I. The values of the palatal index, grouped as to age and concerning the adults as to sexes, are given in Fig. 6. Respecting the distribution per age, the value of the index decreases from the infant group, but increases in the senile age group. This latter datum is, however, not entirely reliable owing to the small number of senile individuals (12 males, 5 females). It should be mentioned that the rate of decrease found in the adult and mature age groups is so low that I would not venture to state the validity of this decrease without recourse to correlational calculations made on samples of greater individual numbers. Studying sexual dimorphism in this respect, it will be found that while the decrease of the index values is contiguous in the males it is slightly irregular in the females, caused, beside the absence of decrease (as pointed out in the preceding paragraph), by the possibility of the increased prevailing of random errors owing, to the smaller individual number of the females. 2. Palatal depth correlations with width Palatal depths should be measured at M

1 according to the generally accepted MARTIN process. However, CAMPBELL (1925), who had perhaps most profusely discussed the palatal depth, always measured at M

2 referring to the usage of measuring the palatal width also at this point. This author grouped his material according to ages and published also mean values, but he submitted no evaluations concerning sexual dimorphism; his mean values exhibit an increasing trend concurrently with age, from 5.9 mm to 11.4 mm. CAMPBELL also remarked that "specimens" of the senile age were carefully excluded from mean value calculations owing to the alveolar absorption. Since I measured the palatal depths at M

1

, it was unfortunately impossible to use CAMPBELL'S few published data directly in comparisons. He also recorded a single mean value result (M = 10.8 mm) by KLATS, who measured at M

1

. In his paper, MIDDLETON-SHAW (1931) published a single mean value concerning the palatal depths. The mean value of 84 adult Bantu individuals is 19.5 mm (the intervallum being 13.5-22 mm). This is a truly great value, be it compared to CAMPBELL'S means or to those found in the investigation of the present material. This naturally implies that the palatal depth of the Bantus is considerably greater than that of the Australians studied by CAMPBELL (disregarding the different measurement points M

1 and M

2

), and greater than that of the Europoid crania discussed here. The great palatal depth of the Bantus may also be due to the fact, as discernible also from MIDDLETON-SHAW'S other data, that a torus palatinus occurs but seldom in this race (found in merely 9 individuals out of 132), since its presence will essentially decrease the depth of the palatum. This phenomenon may also account for CAMPBELL'S data revealing a low palatal depth, a torus palatinus being rather frequent in the indigenous Australians. I have measured the palatal depth in 540 crania. Exceedingly low values were found in 12 adult individuals; these have been omitted in the mean value calculations. The palatal depth of 31 adult males and 30 adult females was unmeasurable owing to the absorbed alveoli. Nor could the measurements be read in 2 infant and 4 juvenile individuals, and the data of the senile age group were