ALL RIGHTS RESERVED NO PART OF THIS BOOK MAY BE

REPRODUCED IN ANY FORM WITHOUT PERMISSION IN WRITING FROM THE PUBLISHER, EXCEPT BY A REVIEWER WHO WISHES TO QUOTE BRIEF PASSAGES IN CONNECTION WITH A REVIEW WRITTEN FOR INCLUSION IN MAGAZINE OR NEWSPAPER

Published, April, 1939.

SET UP AND ELECTROTYPED BY T. MOREY «t SON PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

The present book is offered to the College audience as a text in a specific branch of physical anthropology. In it an attempt is made to trace the racial history of the white division of Homo sapiens from its Pleistocene beginnings to the present. Although six chapters are specifically devoted to a study of skeletal material by consecutive cultural periods, the main emphasis is placed upon the racial identification and classification of living white peoples. If there is one consistent theme in this book, it is that physical anthropology cannot be divorced from cultural and his­torical associations, and that there is no such thing as “pure” biology, at least in reference to human beings.

In writing a book of this character it has been necessary to employ a number of technical terms; the reader will find these defined in the glos­sary. Statistical tables have been purposely omitted from the text, but since many of the conclusions and identifications made in the chapters of skeletal history are novel, it has seemed advisable to document them by means of tabular material. For this reason the fifty-three columns of basic cranial means have been included as Appendix I.

References to all sources from which material, anthropometric or other­wise, has been drawn are given in footnotes in the sections in which specific data are mentioned. Although over four thousand titles have been consulted in the preparation of this volume, the author makes no pre­tense to have covered the entire literature of the subject. A number of unimportant references have been purposely omitted, and many others which are important have without doubt been overlooked. Except for materials used with special permission in advance of publication, no reference is made to data appearing later than July, 1938.

Two collateral phases of physical anthropology have, for adequate reasons, been completely avoided: the study of blood groups and the question of racial intelligence or racial psychology. The science of blood groups has, by 1938, developed a prodigious bibliography of its own, and will soon be treated in a special survey by Professor Wm. Boyd of Boston University. So far as specialists in this field have yet determined, there is no genetic linkage between blood group types and anthropometric phenomena. The subject of racial intelligence has, on the other hand, not progressed far enough to merit inclusion in a general work of racial history; it has furthermore provided too ready a field for political exploita­tion to be treated or interpreted as a side issue with scientific detachment.

vii

Introduction

Races, in the present volume, are studied without implication of inferiority or superiority.

In the financing of the work, in the collection of data, and in the prepa­ration of the manuscript, many persons have participated. The initial work of collection and preparation was financed, for two years, by gener­ous grants from the Milton Fund and John G. Clark Bequest of Harvard University. Further financing which permitted its completion was pro­vided by my father, Mr. John Lewis Coon, by The Macmillan Company, and by Mr. Lloyd Cabot Briggs. For the original suggestion that I be chosen to write the book, for his support in obtaining the original research funds, and for his continual advice and encouragement, I am deeply indebted to my teacher, Professor Earnest A. Hooton, who initiated me to physical anthropology and to whom I wish to render here an expression of homage and appreciation not only as my personal mentor but also as the spiritual father of American physical anthropology.

Of the many assistants who helped with the tedious labor of translating, abstracting, calculating, plotting, checking, and typing, four deserve especial credit: Mrs. Mary Ruby Gardner, Miss Anna Szugzda, Mr. Eugene C. Worman, and Mr. Jens Yde. Mr. Elmer Rising, who pre­pared all of the maps, charts, and line drawings, made the task of illus­tration easy with his experience and cooperation. Mr. Frederick P. Orchard and Miss Marion Lambert assisted in the preparation of the photographic illustrations.

Miss Constance Ashenden, Librarian of the Peabody Museum of Harvard University, under whose direction every article in the scientific periodicals included in the library has been separately catalogued by author, subject, and country, placed at my disposal her great knowledge of the bibliography of anthropology, as well as her time and patience. To her and to Mr. Francis Gould, her assistant, I owe an especial debt of gratitude.

The following persons have permitted me to make use of unpublished anthropometric materials: Dr. Gordon T. Bowles, Mr. C. Wesley Duper- tuis, Mr. Robert W. Ehrich, Dr. Henry Field, Mr. James Gaul, Mr. Herbert R. Glodt, Dr. Earnest A. Hooton, Dr. Byron O. Hughes, Dr. Frederick P. Hulse, Dr. W. Marion Krogman, Mr. Homer H. Kidder, Mr. Martin Luther, Dr. Theodore W. McCown, Dr. Geoffrey M. Morant, Dr. Carl C. Seltzer, Dr. William Shanklin, Professor Boris N. Vishnevsky, Mrs. Ruth Sawtelle Wallis, Professor Franz Weidenreich. Each of these persons will be further accredited in reference to the specific material used. It is hoped that a cursory mention of their data in this volume will stim­ulate interest in their detailed monographs which will follow. Needless to say, none of them is to be held responsible for any erroneous or un­