Matskási István (szerk.): A Magyar Természettudományi Múzeum évkönyve 81. (Budapest 1989)

Tóth, T.: Environmental causality in the flatness of splanchnocranium

ANNALES HISTORICO-NATURALES MUSEI NATIONALIS HUNGARICI Tomus81. Budapest, 1990 p. 261-273. Environmental causality in the flatness of splanchnocranium by T. TÓTH, Budapest T. TÓTH: Environmental causality in the flatness of splanchnocranium. - Annls hist.-nat. Mus. natn. hung. 1989,81:261-273. Abstract - The problem is outlined on the origin of facial skeleton flatness in Men. Alternative conceptions in the taxonomical diagnosis of flatness are discussed. Attention is focused on the effectivness of different combinations of various environmental factors. With 4 tables and 2 figures. Material and method In the last decades analysis of the morphological characters of the facial skeleton (e.g. flatness) has been neglected by the majority of general craniological studies. This is true in the case of series originating from different millennia, too, with the only exception of northern Eurasia (where the evaluation of the horizontal face profil has been a part of the craniological programmes) since decades. The systematical analysis of human cranium concerning particularly the morphological configuration of the maxillo-nasal region started on the basis of two classical studies (Woo & MORANT 1934, ABINDER 1960) on more than seven thousand human crania excavated in the territory of North-Eurasia (DEBETS 1951,1961a, 1961b). The flatness as a taxonomical trait has been diagnosed according to alternative conceptions. In contradiction to DEBETS (op. cit.) the flatness has not been considered by some authors as a manifestation of mongoloidism, because this character - in spite of its becoming a stabile one on the Asian continent during the millennia of the geological Holocene - was clearly manifested in the values of the nasomalar angle of the European populations, too, which lived in the Upper Paleolithic and Mesolithic periods (YAKIMOV 1957,1960,1961; ALEXEYEV 1978,1979,1983; GOHMAN 1966,1986) (Figs 1-2). For expressing the mutual relation existing between the nasomalar and zygomaxillar angles YAKIMOV (1960, Tsui 1960) proposed the platyprosopy index - Zm: 77 per cent. In this context the analysis of recent craniological finds from South-African bushmen deserves a special attention. In the first craniological synthesis of the people of the Earth HOWELLS (1973) gives a summarized documentation using the data of the bushman osteological remanins deposited in different collections (Vienna, Cape Town, New York, Johannesburg, Paris, Edinburgh and Oxford). In July 1981 the author of the present paper had the opportunity to study recent craniological finds of bushmen in the Institute of Human Biology of the Vienna University as well as in the Natural History Museum of Vienna. The Osteometrie characteristics of 101 adult individuals (48 males, 53 females from the Pöch-collection) were formerly analysed by PACHER (1961) according to traditional programmes and she drew our attention to the possibility of metisation. In accordance with this a number of metric data of flatness was collected from the finds of the presumably „bushman" group (12 males, 16 females) (Table 1). In the evaluation of the linear and angle values of the horizontal profile and nasal region the categories calculated by DEBETS were used (ALEXEYEV & DEBETS 1964, and Table 4). The curvature index (S:C) of os malare was determined on the crania of the bushman-group with WOO's method (Woo 1937, TÓTH 1968). The nasalspine angle was calculated on the basis of PACHER'S data (1961). The platyprosopy index was also calculated for the first time on the present series. Finally, we have to mention a short summary concerning the facial flatness metric analyses carried out 1880-1960 (TÓTH 1961). Paper presented at the 12th International Congress of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences, held in Zagreb, 29th July 198&.