A FIRST STUDY OF THE BURMESE SKULL. 
By M. L. TILDESLEY, Crewdson-Benington Student in Craniometry*, 
Biometric Laboratory, University College, London. 
CONTENTS 
PAGE 
(1) Introductory , .176 
(2) Measiirements and Methods of Measurement 177 
(3) On the Difficulties attached to the Definition of certain Cranial "Points" 180 
(4) Determination of the Inion 184 
(5) Contours 185 
(6) On the Accuracy of Contour Values for the Determination of Cranial 
Constants 210 
(7) Description of Material and Comparison of Direct Measurements of the 
Three Series 217 
(8) Comparison of Type Contours. (Burmese Groups) .... 223 
(9) On the Remarks as to the Cranial AnomaUes 232 
(10) Comparative Material .235 
(11) Comparison of Burmese with Adjacent Racial Series .... 238 
(12) Coefficient of Racial Likeness 247 
(13) The Asymmetry of the Skull . .251 
Description of Plates 259 
Appendix I. Table of the Occipital Index 260 
Appendix II. Tables of the Absolute and Indicial Measurements of the 
Individual Crania to face p. 262 
1. Introductory. 
The collection of skulls which forms the subject of the present study was procured 
from the neighbourhood of Moulmein, in the southern part of Burma, by the late 
Colonel P. H. Caster, LM.S., at the request of Professor Karl Pearson. The territory 
which stretches from the Namkiii mountains in the north down the whole length 
of the Irawadi river and still further down the coast towards the Malay Peninsula, 
and is administered under the name Burma, embraces many racial units which 
might be classed together generally as Burmese, but of which the Burman proper 
is only one. The request was for purely Burman skulls, but it was evidently difficult 
to ensure this, and the collection of 142 skulls includes some that are of a different 
racial type from the majority. The series is on the whole well-preserved, though 
some few are rather badly damaged, and cannot yield a full series of measurements. 
* The author wishes to acknowledge the very valuable aid she has received from the Department 
of Industrial and Scientific Research. Without this aid it would not have been possible for her to 
devote the past two years to craniological training. We have also to acknowledge the assistance of a 
grant made by the Royal Society Government Grant Committee towards the cost of the plates of this 
memoir. 
