Craniology

Craniology, often called craniometry, is the study of the skull or cranium, and the word is derived from Latin. Research has varied from the measuring of the skull to provide information for anthropologists or about evolution, to pseudoscience with people trying to use head shapes and sizes for phrenology, to medical treatment for people who have suffered head injuries.

The measuring of skulls for anthropological information is usually known as craniometry, and is important for anthropologists and ethnologists. The Swedish professor of anatomy Anders Retzius established the use of a cephalic index for physical anthropology for the classification of ancient human remains, especially skulls, found by archaeologists in Europe. Retzius defined skulls as dolichocephalic [Page 455], brachycephalic, and mesocephalic. This led to Georges Vacher de Lapouge describing the skulls in such a way as to classify them to help espouse his ideas on eugenics. He made divisions between the different races, and also between several types of Aryans. His ideas were taken up by William Z. Ripley in The Races of Europe (1899), leading to interest being expressed in them by racists in Nazi Germany. Similar ideas were espoused by Pieter Camper, who tried to compare skulls of different races to help find a scientific basis for racist theories. There were also a number of ideas put forward by Samuel George Morton, who compared skulls from around the world and tried to work out the different brain capacities, with his work being highlighted by Josiah C. Nott and George Gliddon in Types of Mankind (1854). However, Morton's work has since been scientifically demolished by the American paleontologist and historian of science Stephen Jay Gould, whose book, The Mismeasure of Man (1981), showed that Morton had “cheated” on many occasions to obtain the statistics he published.

With his 1981 book The Mismeasure of Man, Stephen Jay Gould debunked 19th-century craniology and similar scientific racism.

The study of skulls by the German-born Franz Josef Gall led in a similar direction at first. Gall started work as a medical doctor but became interested in what he called “canioscopy”—the study of skulls or heads. For the most part, he worked only with skulls, putting together a large collection that is now held at the Rollet Museum in Baden bei Wien, Austria. He first used these to propound the inferiority of blacks and also the Irish, the latter leading to the popularity of his work in England, although his work was criticized by the Roman Catholic Church and the Austrian government where he was working. Gall soon started developing what was to become phrenology, by which people sought to be able to determine the character of a person by the shape of his or her skull. It was believed by many at the time that some people were born evil, and this could be shown in the shapes of their skulls. The result was that in 19th-century North America and in Victorian Britain, scientists visited prisons where they measured and modeled the heads of criminals, even going so far as collecting skulls from men and women who were executed to try to come up with some evidence for the shape of a “criminal” head.

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