Field Notes - 25 November 2013 - Skull Triangles

Skull Triangles: Flinders Petrie, Craniometry and Race Dr Debbie Challis (University College London) Discussant: Dr Kate Nichols (CRASSH, University of Cambridge) Abstract My paper takes as its starting point a ‘Diagram of Climate and Race’ published by the archaeologist Flinders Petrie in the anthropological journal Man in 1902. I will consider Petrie’s assumptions around race and skull dimensions inherent in the diagram and how this relates to his work at this time. Petrie collected skulls for what became the National Eugenics Laboratory at UCL and I will concentrate on the use by ‘computers’ at UCL of skulls from the predynastic site of Naqada, Petrie’s first large collection for Karl Pearson.