DOI article:
Smith, Grafton Elliot; Derry, Douglas Erith: Anatomical report: dealing with the work during the months of January and February 1910
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.18106#0024
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as a thousand years. And it would be rash to assume that these people
—probably in their origin the offspring of a mixture of people of the
Predynastic type with Negroes—would retain their physical
characteristics unchanged through a span of ten centuries, even if no
other confusing elements came into play. But we have the most
definite evidence (see Plates II, HI, IV and V) that fresh Negroes
came north from time to time, adding to the population elements by
no means uniform in their physical traits, and that the Egyptian
element was often reinforced by people coming from Egypt, who in
many cases (see Plate II, Fig. 4) presented features markedly differing
from those which characterized the original Predynastic substratum of
the Nubian population; in other words, conforming to the racial types
that occurred in Upper Egypt at the time.
In all the cemeteries of C-group people hitherto examined, as well
as in those of later Nubians, the mean length of the men's crania had
been invariably shorter to a significant degree than that of the A-group
series. Hence it was a matter of some surprise to find that in the
means recorded above, the difference had vanished after the figures
derived from Cemetery 101 had been added on. One reason for this
result becomes apparent on studying the measurements of individual
skulls, for it is noteworthy that amongst the crania obtained from
Cemetery 101 there is a considerable group with quite exceptionally
large dimensions ; and the addition to the mean length which brings
it up to the reduced figure now obtained in the case of the A-group
is mainly if not wholly due to these massive skulls.
The evidence at our disposal at present seems to point to the
conclusion—although this is a matter which demands more attention
than we have yet been able to devote to the problem—that some of
the same group of big negroid people, whose remains have been found
in cemeteries of a later date (see Bulletin 1, p. 28) had already made
their way north into Nubia.
There is another point raised by this comparison of A-group and
C-group people, the discussion of which involves the consideration
of the most fundamental problems in Egyptian anthropology. If it
be true, as we have contended in the Annual Report 1907-8, Vol. II,
Chapter II, that the Early Dynastic population of Egypt presents definite
differences, which serve to distinguish them from the Predynastic
Egyptians, do the A-group people, who are the contemporaries of the
as a thousand years. And it would be rash to assume that these people
—probably in their origin the offspring of a mixture of people of the
Predynastic type with Negroes—would retain their physical
characteristics unchanged through a span of ten centuries, even if no
other confusing elements came into play. But we have the most
definite evidence (see Plates II, HI, IV and V) that fresh Negroes
came north from time to time, adding to the population elements by
no means uniform in their physical traits, and that the Egyptian
element was often reinforced by people coming from Egypt, who in
many cases (see Plate II, Fig. 4) presented features markedly differing
from those which characterized the original Predynastic substratum of
the Nubian population; in other words, conforming to the racial types
that occurred in Upper Egypt at the time.
In all the cemeteries of C-group people hitherto examined, as well
as in those of later Nubians, the mean length of the men's crania had
been invariably shorter to a significant degree than that of the A-group
series. Hence it was a matter of some surprise to find that in the
means recorded above, the difference had vanished after the figures
derived from Cemetery 101 had been added on. One reason for this
result becomes apparent on studying the measurements of individual
skulls, for it is noteworthy that amongst the crania obtained from
Cemetery 101 there is a considerable group with quite exceptionally
large dimensions ; and the addition to the mean length which brings
it up to the reduced figure now obtained in the case of the A-group
is mainly if not wholly due to these massive skulls.
The evidence at our disposal at present seems to point to the
conclusion—although this is a matter which demands more attention
than we have yet been able to devote to the problem—that some of
the same group of big negroid people, whose remains have been found
in cemeteries of a later date (see Bulletin 1, p. 28) had already made
their way north into Nubia.
There is another point raised by this comparison of A-group and
C-group people, the discussion of which involves the consideration
of the most fundamental problems in Egyptian anthropology. If it
be true, as we have contended in the Annual Report 1907-8, Vol. II,
Chapter II, that the Early Dynastic population of Egypt presents definite
differences, which serve to distinguish them from the Predynastic
Egyptians, do the A-group people, who are the contemporaries of the