230 
A First St udy of the Burmese Skull 
smallness of the Group C sample. It is, in fact, impossible to be dogmatic about 
any difference in the type which our Group C represents, as suggested by contour 
comparison, especially in the males; our conclusions can be but tentative. This 
applies, it need not be repeated, also to what follows: 
We will now proceed to examine in how far the shape of the frontal bone itself 
has a share in giving the impression of greater frontal flatness in Group C, we super- 
pose the nasio-bregmatic lines, nasion covering nasion as at first. The two chords 
are of practically the same length, and though there is slightly greater concavity 
in Group A above the ophryon, in the J and ?, this is so slight as to be negligible. 
The impression of flatness in Group C therefore is due very little to the actual 
flattening of the frontal but chiefly to its position. 
If we use the glabella-lambda line as base-line, the characteristics we have 
already remarked are brought out quite well: in this position we get rather less 
the effect of frontal flatness, and more of the difference accounted for by the back 
of the head. 
Finally, the glabella-inion Hne: this has the advantage in both sexes of making 
the opisthions coincide; and in the female contours brings out quite well the 
characteristics of the two groups. In the males, however, the much greater length 
of the occipital bone for the short series of Group C, with the corresponding lower- 
ing of the inion, makes Group A type fall entirely within Group C, from the middle 
of the frontal right away to the inion, so that here it is Group A that would seem 
to have a more flattened frontal, and about equal downward slope for the back of 
the head ; an effect that is suggested neither by the actual appearance of the skulls 
nor by the other methods of contour comparison. 
Whichever of these various base-lines is used, however, there is one feature so 
pronounced that it is brought out by all of them. This is the much less prominence 
of the nose in Group A, for both male and female. 
The result of our comparison of these two groups by means of direct measure- 
ments and contours may be summed up as follows: Group A, the Burman Group, 
is broad and high in proportion to its length (in the brachycephalic and hypsi- 
cephalic categories), with marked frontal eminences, and is more vertical than 
Group C from the crown of the head down to the inionic region; it is of a rugged 
build, has prominent cheek-bones, nose wide and rather flat at the bridge, wide 
and rather depressed from the bridge downwards (nasal index classifies it as platy- 
rhine), orbits flat rather than round, but not markedly so (mesoconchic, to use 
another of these cumbersome class designations), given to sub-nasal prognathism, 
as the "Remarks" in Appendix II testify, but face fairly vertical above this point; 
palate not specially broad in proportion to its length (on the borders of the 
leptostaphyline and mesostaphyline categories). 
Group C is both longer and narrower in the main skull measurements but again 
high (mesocephalic and hypsicephalic) ; it is of smoother and lighter build with less 
outstanding cheek-bones, higher nasal bridge, and more prominent nose, the nose 
being narrower -both at the bridge and lower down (mesorhine); orbits shghtly 
