Table Of ContentTHE  UNIVERSITY  OF CHICAGO
Date______________May  2fi____________195Q_.
Neumann. Georg Karl________________________________June  6, 1907
Author  Birth Date
Racial Differentiation in the American. Indian.
Title of Dissertation
Anthropology Ph.D. June, 1950
Department or School Degree Convocation
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THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO
RACIAL DIFFERENTIATION IN THE AMERICAN INDIAN
' A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO 
THE FACULTY OF THE DIVISION OF THE SOCIAL SCIENCES 
IN CANDIDACY FOR THE DEGREE OF 
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
DEPARTMENT OF ANTHROPOLOGY
BY
GEORG KARL NEUMANN
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS 
JUNE, 1950
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
LIST OF TABLES.............................................. Hi
LIST OF PLATES............................................   vi
Chapter
I.  INTRODUCTION ......................................  1
II.  THE OTAMID VARIETY.................................  18
III.  THE ISWANID VARIETY...............................  33
IV.  THE ASHIWID VARIETY...............................  50
V.  THE WALCOLID VARIETY...............................  58
VI.  THE LENAPID VARIETY...............................  72
VII.  THE INUID VARIETY.................................  85
VIII.  THE DENEID VARIETY......................     97
IX.  THE LAKOTID VARIETY................................. Ill
X.  CONCLUSIONS..........................    123
PLATES.......................................................131
LIST OF REFERENCES.......................................... 141
11
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LIST OF TABLES
Table  Page
1.  List of Morphological Observations.................... 11
2.  List of Measurements    ................ 13
3.  List of Indices    .............................. 15
4.  Modal Distribution of Morphological Traits of
the Otamid Variety . . . . . . . .       . . . .   21
5.  Mean Measurements of the Otamid Variety    .........   24
6.  Mean Indices of the Otamid Variety.................... 26
7.  Comparison of Otamid and Lenapid Series— Measurements.  27
3.  Comparison of Otamid and Lenapid Series— Indices . . .   29
9.  Comparison of Otamid and Ashiwid Series— Measurements,  30
10.  Comparison of Otamid and Ashiwid Series— Indices . . .   31
11.  Modal Distribution of Morphological Traits of
the Iswanid Variety  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   38
12.  Mean Measurements of the Iswanid Variety . . . . . . .   40
13.  Mean Indices of the Iswanid Variety  . . . . . . . . .   42
14.  Comparison of Iswanid and Ashiwid Series— Measurements  44
15.  Comparison of Iswanid and Ashiwid Series— Indices  .  .  45
16.  Comparison of Iswanid and Lenapid Series— Measurements  47
17.  Comparison of Iswanid and Lenapid Series— Indices  .  .  49
18.  Modal Distribution of Morphological Traits of
the Ashiwid Variety  . . . . . . . ...................   53
19.  Mean Measurements of the Ashiwid Variety . . . . . . .   55
20.  Mean Indices of the Ashiwid Variety   .............. 56
21.  Modal Distribution of Morphological Traits  of
the Walcolid Variety . . . . .   ........  . . . . . . .   61
iii
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Table  Page
22.  Uean Measurements of the Walcolld Variety . . . . . .   63
23.  Uean Indices of the Walcolid Variety  . . . . . . . .   65
24.  Comparison of Lenapid and Walcolid Series—
Measurements..........        .  67
25.  Comparison of Lenapid and Walcolid Series— Indices.  •  69
26.  Modal Distribution of Morphological Traits of
the Lenapid Variety . . . .       . . . . . . .   75
27.  Mean Measurements of the Lenapid Variety  . . . . . .   77
28.  Mean Indices of the Lenapid Variety . . . . . . . . .   79
29.  Comparison of Lenapid and Ashiwid Series—
Measurements  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   81
30.  Comparison of Lenapid and Ashiwid Series— Indices •  •
31.  Modal Distribution of Morphological Traits of
the Inuid Variety   ......................    89
32.  Mean Measurements of the Inuid Variety  . . . . . . .   91
33.  Mean Indices of the Inuid Variety . . . . . . . . . .   93
34.  Comparison of Inuid and Lenapid Series— Measurements.  95
35.  Comparison of Inuid and Lenapid Series— Indices . . .   96
36.  Modal Distribution of Morphological Traits of
the Deneid Variety  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   101
37.  Mean Measurements of the Deneid Variety . . . . . . .   103
38.  Mean Indices of the Deneid Variety  . . . . . . . . .   105
39.  Comparison of Walcolid and Deneid Series--
Measurements  . . . . . . . . . .   ........   . . . . .   106
40.  Comparison of Walcolid and Deneid Series— Indices  .  ,  107
41.  Modal Distribution of Morphological Traits of
the Lakotid Variety ..................   . . . . . . .   114
42.  Mean Measurements of the Lakotid Variety  . . . . . .   117
43.  Mean Indices of the Lakotid Variety . . . . . . . . .   118
iv
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Table  Page
44.  Comparison of Deneid and Lakotid Series— Measurements.  119
45.  Comparison of Deneid and Lakotid Series— Indices .  .  .  120
46.  Summary of Comparative Measurements and Indices  .  ,  .  126
v
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LIST OF PLATES
Number  Page
I.  Ashiwid, Iswanid Varieties.....................   .  132
II.  Lenapid, Walcolid Varieties  .  7 .  . ................133
III.  Deneid, Lakotid Varieties    ...............   .  134
IV.  Inuid Variety; Map Showing Distribution of
Varieties; Otamid Variety  . . . . . . . . . . . . .   135
V.  Otamid Variety...............................     136
VI,  Ashiwid, Iswanid, Inuid Varieties..................137
VII.  Lenapid, Lakotid Varieties  . . . . . . . . . . . . .   138
VIII.  Walcolid, Uinicid Varieties  .....................   139
IX.  Deneid Variety...............................     140
vi
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CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION1
This study is an outgrowth of work with archaeological 
and historically documented skeletal material of the North American 
Indian over a period of twenty years.  It is a study of the racial 
history of the aboriginal inhabitants of this continent from 
earliest times to the period of first contacts with Europeans.
After a careful examination of published data on the subject it 
was found that some of these studies were top broad, in the sense 
that the skeletal remains of a certain area were examined to find 
to what extent they had retained morphological features that are 
now more or less diagnostic of Australoids, Negroids, Caucasoids, 
or southeastern Asiatic Mongoloids— all end products of human evo
lution.  Oetteking's conclusions in his "Craniology of the North 
Pacific Coast" (1930, pp. 375-76), in which he compares American 
Indian groups with an ancient Egyptian series, and Hooton’s paper
1I should like to take the opportunity to express here my 
gratitude to Drs. Fay-Cooper Cole and Wilton M. Krogman, the mem
bers of my dissertation committee, for their advice and guidance 
in preparing this thesis.  Further, I should like to thank a large 
number of individuals and institutions, too many to list individu 
ally in this preliminary study, who so generously co-operated by 
permitting me to describe collections of crania in their care. 
Full credit shall be given in a more detailed monograph in which 
a considerable number of archaeological series shall be compared 
to the eight type series described in this paper.
1
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2
(1933, pp. 154-62), in which he tries to apply the results of his 
Pecos Pueblo study to the American Indian as a whole, may serve 
as examples.  Other studies described series of crania pooled on 
a broad geographical basis irrespective of the time element in
volved  (Hrdlicka,  1927, p. 48), or were too local in scope to ob
tain a proper perspective (Wissler, 1926, pp. 118-21).  Still 
another was an attempt at a synthesis based on as few as three 
indices  (Dixon, 1923,  pp. 3-23).  Most studies, finally, largely 
omitted morphological characteristics, which are much more likely 
to reflect genetic relationships than absolute dimensions or in
dices, and gave too few measurements to obtain an adequate descrip
tion of the group.  The main shortcoming, however, was that too 
often the crania were examined without due regard to their archaeo
logical affiliations.  This necessitated a reexamination of a con
siderable portion of the skeletal remains that have been preserved 
in our museums, institutions of learning, and private collections.
The main purpose of this study is to present, on the basis 
of an examination of over ten thousand crania with known archaeolog
ical affiliations or tribal identifications from all parts of the 
continent, a description of a number of varieties, which will serve 
as basic groups in the reconstruction of the racial history of the 
New World.  Of necessity only a small portion of the research is 
presented in this study, a circumstance that is reflected by the 
inclusion of only 471 crania in the description of eight type 
series.  The study is further limited by the fact that only crania 
of adult undeformed males are included.  A second purpose of this 
study is to determine what light the data might throw on the number
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3
of migrations that may have been made from northeast Asia across 
the Bering Strait to the New World, and, if possible, to determine 
their sequence.  A third purpose, finally, is to examine the na
ture of the correlation of the physical varieties that have been 
established with various archaeological and linguistic groupings 
in order to clarify the processes of cultural history in general.
The ultimate Asiatic origin of the natives of the Western 
Hemisphere is a generally accepted fact (Hrdlicka, 1925, p. 493), 
just as that that the peopling of the New World was not the result 
of a single wave of people, but rather a continuing series of mi
grations lasting from perhaps immediately post-glacial times to 
around the beginning of the Christian era (Jenness, 1941, pp. 383- 
96)•  The immediate ancestors of these immigrants were in all 
probability inhabitants of the boreal coniferous forest lands of 
northern Asia and the grassland belt to the south (Chappie and 
Coon, 1942, p. 90).  These mid-latitude grasslands and adjoining 
boreal forests were not especially favorable to primitive food 
gatherers and hunting groups.  In the competition for hunting 
grounds in the past,  groups must have been pushed off toward the 
west and northeast again and again.  To the west migration routes 
were open, and as the racial history of man shows, often followed; 
but at other times, while deserts and mountains formed barriers 
to the south, human groups repeatedly may have constituted a 
barrier against further expansion to the west.  In that case small 
groups, perhaps at first closely related to the Upper Cave people 
of Choukoutien (Weidenreich, 1939, p. 172), followed the path of 
least resistance and were channeled off to the northeast.
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