{{Short description, Taxonomic name given to human skull found in Netherlands
Batavus genuinus (
Latin
Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...
for "native" or "authentic Batavian") was the name given in 1828 by the Göttinger professor
Johann Friedrich Blumenbach
Johann Friedrich Blumenbach (11 May 1752 – 22 January 1840) was a German physician, naturalist, physiologist and anthropologist. He is considered to be a main founder of zoology and anthropology as comparative, scientific disciplines. He has be ...
to a
human
Humans (''Homo sapiens'') or modern humans are the most common and widespread species of primate, and the last surviving species of the genus ''Homo''. They are Hominidae, great apes characterized by their Prehistory of nakedness and clothing ...
skull from the island of
Marken
Marken (; Marken's dialect: ''Mereke'') is a village in the municipality of Waterland in the province of North Holland, Netherlands. It had a population of 1,745 as of 2021, and occupies a peninsula in the Markermeer. It was, until 1957, an island ...
in the
Netherlands
, Terminology of the Low Countries, informally Holland, is a country in Northwestern Europe, with Caribbean Netherlands, overseas territories in the Caribbean. It is the largest of the four constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Nether ...
. Dating from a modern age, the skull's most remarkable single characteristic was its strongly sloping forehead, which Blumenbach thought was an ancient feature that had been preserved by the inhabitants of Marken and other small
Zuiderzee
The Zuiderzee or Zuider Zee (; old spelling ''Zuyderzee'' or ''Zuyder Zee''), historically called Lake Almere and Lake Flevo, was a shallow bay of the North Sea in the northwest of the Netherlands. It extended about 100 km (60 miles) inla ...
islands due to their geographic isolation, which had prevented admixture from other tribes.
In 1877 anthropologist
Rudolf Virchow
Rudolf Ludwig Carl Virchow ( ; ; 13 October 18215 September 1902) was a German physician, anthropologist, pathologist, prehistorian, biologist, writer, editor, and politician. He is known as "the father of modern pathology" and as the founder o ...
speculated that the low-skulledness exhibited by
Frisians
The Frisians () are an ethnic group indigenous to the German Bight, coastal regions of the Netherlands, north-western Germany and southern Denmark. They inhabit an area known as Frisia and are concentrated in the Dutch provinces of Friesland an ...
in general, but especially by the people of Marken, linked them directly to the ancient prototype of Germanic man. For the same reason, the skulls were classified as Neanderthaloid by craniometrists despite their recent age.
In 1912 Dutch physician Johannes Antonius James Barge demonstrated that the peculiar form of the "Batavus genuinus" skulls, far from being an inherited feature, had been caused by the tight caps that both the male and female children of Marken were made to wear around their heads until the age of seven.
References
* H.W. Roodenburg, "Marken als relict: het samengaan van schilderkunst, toerisme, volkskunde en fysische antropologie rond 1900". ''Volkskundig Bulletin'' 25.2/3 (1999), 197–214.
Human remains (archaeological)Marken