Fluctuation of The Cranial Index in Anatolia, from The Fourth Millenium B. C. to 1200 B. C

Year 1951, Volume: 15 Issue: 60, 592 - 616, 20.10.1951

Muzaffer Süleyman Şenyürek

Abstract

In his excellent studies on the skulls from Alişar Höyük, W. M. Krogman discussed the measurements of the skulls and the succession of cranial types from the Chalcolithic Age to the Ottoman period. Subsequently, in a paper published in 1941 I discussed the cranial measurements and the cranial types of the ancient inhabitants of Anatolia from the Chalcolithic to the end of the Hittite period. In a paper published in 1945, Marc-R. Sauter gaye the proportions of dolichocephalic, mesocephalic and brachycephalic skulls in the Near East, including Turkey, from ancient to modern times. More recently, Krogman has studied the skulls form the Chalco- lithic to Byzantine times from Chatal Höyük and Ten Al-Judaidah and Angel in his exhaustive monograph has discussed the cranial types from Troy and its vicinity, from Troy I (Chalcolithic Age) to the late Roman period. But in the studies that have been made so fax, although the means of the skulls from various sites have been calculated, so far as I know the mean values of the cranial measurements and indices of all the available ancient Anatolian skulls from the various sites belonging to the same period have not been giyen. In order to meet this need, at least partially, I have decided to calculate the averages of the glabello-occipital length, maximum skull breadth and of the cranial index of the skulls of the ancient inhabitants of Anatolia, belonging to the Chalcolithic, Copper Age, Early Bronze Age and the Hittite Empires period. Although the series from these periods, especially from the Early Bronze Age, are stili not as large as one would wish, they are stili much larger than the series from the same periods, when I studied them in 1941, thus giving more reliable results for at least some of the period

Keywords

Anatolia, Alişar Höyük, Early Bronze Ag, Hittite Empires period