( 411 ) 



XVI. — The Aborigines of Tasmania. Part II. The Skeleton. By Principal Sir Wm. 

 Turner, K.C.B., F.R.S., President of the Society. (Plates I., II.) 



(Read December 20, 1909. Issued separately March 3, 1910.) 

 CONTENTS. 



Introduction 



Skeleton No. 310 



Skull 



Sagittal contour 



Spinal column 



Ribs and sternum 



Pelvis 



l'AGE 



411 

 412 

 412 

 418 

 421 

 425 

 425 



I'AOK 



Superior extremity 428 



Inferior extremity 429 



Length of long bones and relative indices . . 433 



Skull No. 75rf 436 



Comparison with Australian, European, palajolithic 



skulls, and Pithecanthropus .... 437 



Explanation of Plates and Figures .... 453 



Introduction. 



In a memoir " On the Craniology, Racial Affinities and Descent of the Aborigines of 

 Tasmania," published by the Society in October 1908, # I described ten Tasmanian 

 skulls in the Edinburgh Museums, and compared them with those of this extinct race 

 in Paris, London, Oxford, Hobart Town and elsewhere. At that time I was under the 

 impression that I had referred to all the crania of the aborigines, seventy-nine in 

 number, which had been preserved in museums, and for the most part had been 

 described. The memoir did not include a description of the rest of the skeleton. 



Subsequent to its publication I have ascertained the existence of additional crania 

 in other collections. In a valuable memoir by Professor Hermann Klaatsch " On 

 the Skull of the Australian Aboriginal," published by the authority of the Govern- 

 ment of New South Wales.t a female Tasmanian skull, No. 404 in the Sydney 

 Museum, is frequently referred to and its characters are compared with those of 

 Australian crania. During the summer, 1909, on the visit of Professor Louis Dollo, 

 of the Royal Museum, Brussels, to deliver an address to this Society, I had the oppor- 

 tunity of showing him the collection of crania in the Anatomical Museum of the 

 University, when he told me that the Brussels Museum contained the complete 

 skeleton of a Tasmanian aboriginal, and a skull, said to be also from Tasmania, 

 neither of which had been studied. With great courtesy he proposed to send the 

 specimens to me to be examined and described. I wish most cordially to express 

 my indebtedness to him for this great privilege. A note of particulars accompanied 

 the specimens: "No. 310, male skeleton from Flinders Island, where a number 



* Trans. Roy. Soc. Edin., vol. xlvi. p. 365, part ii. 



t Reports of the Pathological Laboratory of the Lunacy Department, vol. i. part iii., 1908, Sydney. 



TRANS. ROY. SOC. EDIN., VOL. XLVII. PART III. (NO. 16). 62 



