On the osteology and affinities of the natives of the Andaman Islands / by William Henry Flower.

  • Flower, William Henry, 1831-1899.
Date:
1879
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the osteology and affinities of the natives of the Andaman Islands / by William Henry Flower. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    On the Osteology and Affinities of the Natives of the Andaman Islands. By William Henry Flower, LL.D., F.RS., P.Z.S., Y.P. Anthrop. Inst.,f &c. There are few people whose physical characters offer a more interesting subject for investigation to the anthropologist than the native inhabitants of the Andaman Islands. Purity of type, due to freedom from mixture with all other races for an extremely long period owing to their isolated position and their inveterate Hostility to all intruders on their shores, and exemplified in their uniformity of physical charac- teristics, is to he found among them, perhaps in a more complete degree than in any other group of mankind. The type, more- over is an extremely peculiar one, presenting a combination of characters not found in any race of which we have at present materials for a satisfactory comparison. It is indeed probable that the more or less mixed and now scattered fragments of Negrito populations found in the interior of various islands of the Indo-Malayan Archipelago, and even upon some parts of the mainland of Asia, may have been derived from the same stock, but the special interest of the Andamanese consists in the fact that they alone of these diminutive black, woolly-haired people occupy the whole of the small islands on which their ancestors have dwelt from time immemorial, or rather did so occupy them until the coming upon them of the English in 1857.' “ ... That a certain admixture from other races occasioned by intentional visits, or accidental wrecking of vessels on then coasts, and absorption of some portion ot foreign element tins derived into the native population may have taken place rom time to time, cannot be denied, but it is questional > e w ie iei this has been sufficient to affect materially the physica c larac ters of the majority. Although most recent and caie u } lll,u observations, especially when supported by osteo ogica * Yule pp. 35-50 in the present volume. f Read June 24th, 1870. a