Note 247 — Chapter IV

The Aztecs are represented in our museum by three skulls found in an ancient cemetery near Mexico, which was uncovered in digging intrenchments to protect the Mexican capital against the armies of the United States. They are remarkable for the shortness of their axis, large flattened occiput, obliquely truncated behind, the height of the semicircular line of the temples, the shortness and trapezoid form of the parietal plane. They present an elevation or ridge along the sagittal suture; the base of the skull is very short, the face slightly prognathic, as among the Mongol Kalmucs. (Retzius in Smithsonian Report, 1859, p. 268.)