Bumps & Brains

Does a high brow necessarily make its owner a highbrow? Anthropologists have long and solemnly argued the relative braininess of long-headed v. roundheaded men. Now, an anthropologist who deplores the whole argument -- Dr. Franz Weidenreich of the American Museum of Natural History--contends that they have been wasting their time. In a well-documented report in the Southwestern Journal of Anthropology, he offers a convincing case against the prevailing notion that a long head (or a high brow) denotes a superior brain. Intelligence, he concludes flatly, has nothing to do with the shape of the head.

Dr. Weidenreich traces the head-shape fallacy, on which the Nazis based their theory of the superiority of the longheaded Nordic type, to "a tragic anthropological error committed in good faith" 100 years ago by a Swedish anatomist named Anders Retzius. Retzius hit on the idea of identifying peoples or races by a head-measurement index based on the ratio between length (from the forehead to the back of the head) and breadth. Ever since, anthropologists have classified all men as "dolichocephalics" (long-headed), "brachycephalics" (broad-headed) and "mesocephalics" (in between).

Many a scientist promptly divided Europeans into: 1) the "superior" dolicho cephalic northern and Mediterranean races, and 2) the "inferior" brachycephalic or mesocephalic Central European (Alpine and Dinaric) races, supposedly the product of mixture with invading brachycephalic hordes from Asia.

Anthropologists by now have measured so many heads that Dr. Weidenreich feels the evidence is clear. The facts: 1) the Asiatics (notably the Mongols), who were supposed to have contaminated European dolichocephalism, had long heads, not round heads; 2) the only predominantly long-headed groups in the world today are savages in Australia and Africa; 3) civilized men of all races are becoming more & more roundheaded, probably as a result of rising from all fours to an erect posture, which changes the form of the spinal column and of the skull base. The trend toward a broader and shorter skull, says Dr. Weidenreich, has not reduced modern man's brain; it remains about the same size as that of the Neanderthal man. According to the latest theory, brainpower depends not on shape or size but on configuration of the brain surface and on the development of the cerebral cortex. Says Weidenreich: "The attempt to equip dolichocephalics as such with certain characteristic mental qualities ... is nothing but a revival of ... phrenology. . . ."

Another head-shape fallacy was exploded last week by the University of Illinois dental school. Doctors have long supposed that an individual's head shape changes considerably as he grows up. But Illinois X-ray studies showed that while an infant's head bones and bumps grow bigger, their relative proportions remain virtually unchanged throughout life. Thus, from an X-ray photograph of a newborn infant's head, it is possible to sketch approximately how he will look as an adult.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.