the sarasins’ collection of historical sri lankan crania

119© 2020 The Anthropological Society of Nippon

IntroductionIn 1883, Swiss naturalists Paul and Fritz Sarasin em-

barked on their first journey to Sri Lanka (then Ceylon) to study an amphibian species, the Ceylon caecilians, and ele-phant embryonic development (Sarasin and Sarasin, 1886, 1893). Their expeditions were privately funded and their associated research for the Museum of Ethnology Basel, Switzerland was conducted on an honorary basis (Schmid, 2012). In their four subsequent expeditions to Sri Lanka (in 1890, 1902, 1907, and 1925), the Sarasins pivoted their at-tention from zoological studies to anthropological research on the Indigenous ‘Vedda’ people of the island. German bio-medical scientist Rudolph Virchow was among the first to recognize the biological links shared by South Asian Indige-nous groups (Virchow, 1886), and it is suggested that his work inspired the Sarasins to conduct detailed studies of the ‘Vedda’ people (Schwidetzky, 1983). In this material report, context is provided for the Sarasins’ collection, as an exam-ple of a skeletal series representing the biological heritage of

those ‘colonized’ from the late 19th and early 20th centuries.Among the data and collections acquired by the Sarasins

were over 400 artifacts, 500 photographs, and the skeletal remains of over 90 individuals affiliated with diverse ethnic groups of Sri Lanka (Sarasin and Sarasin, 1908; Schmid, 2012). Notable among the collection is the large number of crania of the ‘Vedda’ people (since the term ‘Vedda’ has been used in a derogatory sense within Sri Lanka, it is placed within quotation marks in this paper to avoid such pejorative associations). They are more appropriately known as Wan-nila Atto (forest people) or ‘Adivasi’ (original inhabitants) and appear in the literature also spelt as ‘Vanniyaletto,’ ‘Wannilaeto,’ and ‘Wanniya-laeto.’ The ‘Vedda’ people were considered by the Sarasins as a society on the verge of disap-pearance (Sarasin and Sarasin, 1893, 1907). The Sarasins’ collection at Basel comprises the largest single collection of ‘Vedda’ crania curated in a single museum or collection. A smaller, yet notable, number of crania belonging to the Tamil and Sinhala people from several parts of the island are also included in the Sarasins’ collection (Figure 1, Table 1). The main objective of this report is to present craniometric data and assess morphological variation among the ‘Vedda’ and other Sri Lankan ethnic groups using this valuable dataset. The raw data are provided as an online supplementary source to facilitate future studies.

Sri Lankans today are representatives of the original in-habitants of the island and later arrivals, forming a multieth-

Anthropological Science Vol. 128(3), 119–128, 2020

The Sarasins’ Collection of Historical Sri Lankan CraniaSamanti Kulatilake1*

1Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Mount Royal University, 4825 Mount Royal Gate SW, Calgary, AB, Canada T3E 6K6

Received 20 May 2019; accepted 28 April 2020

Abstract Swiss naturalists Paul and Fritz Sarasin visited Sri Lanka on five occasions. Their later visits were focused on anthropological research on the Indigenous Wannila Atto (‘Vedda’) people and explo-ration of prehistoric settlements in Sri Lanka. Among the Sarasins’ anthropological and archaeological collections are skeletal material of several ethnic groups of Sri Lanka belonging to the 19th and early 20th centuries. This collection is curated at the Natural History Museum of Basel, Switzerland. The ethnolinguistic groups represented in the Sarasins’ collection include the ‘Vedda,’ Tamil, and Sinhala people of Sri Lanka, and it constitutes the largest ‘Vedda’ cranial collection housed at a single institution. The objective of this paper is to compare cranial variation of the Indigenous ‘Vedda’ and other Sri Lan-kan ethnic groups using this important dataset, while publishing the raw craniometric data for further studies. Observations on the dentition show that the Tamil and Sinhala individuals had high incidences of caries and dental abscesses that are typically associated with agriculturalists and that cribra orbitalia associated with iron deficiency was relatively common among all three ethnic groups. Betel quid chew-ing for recreational and cultural purposes, a practice that is widespread even today, had left dark stains on the teeth of many individuals of all groups in the sample. Multivariate statistical analyses on the craniometric data show that there is significant overlap among the three ethnic groups in terms of crani-al shape. These findings underscore the importance of considering the ‘Vedda,’ Tamil, and Sinhala groups from Sri Lanka as closely related, due to gene flow over millennia.

Key words: Sri Lanka, Wannila Atto, Vedda, Tamil, Sinhala

Material Report

* Correspondence to: Samanti Kulatilake, Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Mount Royal University, 4825 Mount Royal Gate SW, Calgary, AB, Canada T3E 6K6. E-mail: [email protected] online 8 August 2020 in J-STAGE (www.jstage.jst.go.jp) DOI: 10.1537/ase.200428

S. KULATILAKE120 Anthropological Science

nic, multicultural, and multireligious society. Anthropologi-cal and archaeological studies situate the ‘Vedda’ people as the descendants of the original hunter-gatherer people of Mesolithic Sri Lanka (Tennent, 1860; Kennedy, 1971; Deraniyagala, 1992; Kennedy, 2000; Hawkey, 2002; Kulatilake, 2016). In addition, the biological and cultural relationships between the ‘Veddoid’ people of southern and central India (e.g. Kadar, Chenchu) and the ‘Vedda’ of Sri Lanka have been discussed in the literature (Virchow, 1886; Duckworth, 1894; Kennedy, 2000; Majumder, 2010). The Tamil and Sinhala people, who were later arrivals, now con-stitute the majority of the population in Sri Lanka. Today, the Sinhala ethnic group makes up about 75% of the population, while the Sri Lankan and Indian Tamil ethnic groups togeth-er make up approximately 14% of the population. The ‘Vedda’ people have been acculturated and assimilated to the

mainstream Sinhala and Tamil cultures of the island over the centuries (Spittel, 1950; Wijesekera, 1964; Dharmadasa and Samarasinghe, 1990; de Silva and Punchihewa, 2011; Attanapola and Lund, 2013). Although there are no reliable data, people who self-identify as ‘Vedda’ today, would ac-count for less than 1% of the national population.

Several reports on the Sarasins’ collection exist. These include the multivolume original reports by the Sarasins (Sarasin and Sarasin, 1893), where they describe the physi-cal anthropology of the ‘Vedda,’ Tamil, and Sinhala groups. They used several existing methods to develop a graphing system on cranial variation (Sarasin and Sarasin, 1893: 124–150), the so-called ‘Sarasinian cranial curves’ (Schmid, 2012). Duckworth (1894) cited several measures and cranial indices reported by the Sarasins on ‘Vedda’ and Tamil crania to describe two crania collected from Nagyr, in present-day Pakistan. Hill published two studies on the ‘Vedda’ people’s biological traits (Hill, 1932, 1941) that referred to the Sarasins’ collection. The craniometric data published by Hill are primarily based on collections held in Great Britain, such as the Duckworth collection in Cambridge, and his focus was on the anthropometry and somatometry of the living ‘Vedda’ people of his time (Hill, 1941). Reports that refer-ence the Sarasins’ collection published in the 1970s include those by Kennedy (1971) and Kaufmann (1977). Kennedy enumerated the collection of ‘Vedda’ skeletal remains in the Sarasins’ collection in Basel and provided context for the collection, while referring to other collections of ‘Vedda’ skeletal material curated in several countries (Sri Lanka, Great Britain, Ireland, Germany, Australia, and India). How-ever, some of the collections and/or specimens are reported as missing from the repositories or were destroyed during the Second World War (e.g. the collection of the Royal Col-lege of Surgeons, London). An unpublished report by Bul-beck and colleagues notes the relevance of the Basel collec-tion in their exploration of human migrations to Australasia (personal communication). Other studies have used cranio-metric data on ‘Vedda’ skeletal material housed in Great Britain and Sri Lanka (Warusawithana-Kulatilake, 1996; Kulatilake, 2000; Stock et al., 2007), but do not include the Sarasins’ collection at Basel. Apart from the original de-scriptions provided by the collectors (Sarasin and Sarasin, 1893), the crania of the Tamil and Sinhala people in this collection have received little to no attention in early ac-counts, due to a focus on the Indigenous ‘Vedda’ people. This report is the first to provide data on the Tamil and Sinhala groups in the Sarasins’ collection, along with the ‘Vedda’ data. Craniometric data published on this collection by the Sarasins (1893) and Kaufmann (1977) include a smaller set of measurements. Furthermore, systematic re-cording following the techniques and methods of Howells (1973) was not previously undertaken. Therefore, this report is the first to provide detailed cranial measurements that can be replicated and compared with other datasets of global samples. Results from univariate and multivariate statistical analyses are also presented.

Materials and MethodsThe catalogue of materials of the Sarasins’ collection cu-

Table 1. The Sarasins’ collection: sample of observed adult crania from Sri Lanka by ethnic group

Ethnic group Male Female Total‘Vedda’ 22 19 41Tamil 14 10 24Sinhala 12 6 18Sinhala/Tamil 2 0 2

Figure 1. Map of locations in Sri Lanka where skeletal remains were collected by the Sarasins. (Map credits: Pam MacQuarrie.)

SARASINS’ COLLECTION OF HISTORICAL SRI LANKAN CRANIA 121

rated at the Natural History Museum of Basel (Naturhistor-isches Museum Basel) identifies a total of 98 individuals from the ‘Vedda,’ Tamil, and Sinhala ethnic groups (Fig-ure 2). The catalogue refers to fetuses and other skeletal ele-ments besides crania that are not reported in the present study. A total of 85 adult crania were observed (Table 1).

In the Sarasins’ collection, the ‘Vedda’ remains identified were mainly from inland forested regions and coastal areas in the eastern parts of the island in the Uva and Eastern prov-inces (see Figure 1). Of the 44 ‘Vedda’ individuals listed in the catalogue, only 41 were observed. The Natural History Museum of Basel housed 40 of these, while one skull was at the Ethnology Museum Basel (Museum der Kulturen). The individuals designated as Tamil included 24 observable cra-nia, whereas five Tamil individuals listed were not observed during this study. The Sarasins’ collection also included 18 crania of the Sinhalese ethnic group. Two crania in the col-lection were denoted as either Tamil or Sinhala. These were not included in the analysis. Sexing was performed by stand-ard osteological methods (Buikstra and Ubelaker, 1994). Many of the crania were associated with data sheets record-ed by the collectors. Overall, the majority of crania were complete and relatively well preserved.

The acquisition of craniometric data was based upon the methods described by Howells (1973). A battery of 49 crani-al measurements was used to acquire data on complete cra-nia. Standard osteometric techniques and tools were em-ployed. All measurements were recorded to the nearest millimetre. Measures of interobserver and intraobserver er-ror were found to be acceptable (Warusawithana-Kulatilake, 1996; Kulatilake, 2000). Due to preservation issues, the number of crania available for osteometry (Appendix) does not necessarily correspond to those listed in Table 1. All statistical procedures were conducted using the SPSS pro-gram.

To assess the nutritional/health status of the individuals in this skeletal series, the incidences of cribra orbitalia, dental enamel hypoplasia (DEH), caries, and dental abscesses were

examined. Standard osteological and dental observational methods were followed when making these assessments (Buikstra and Ubelaker, 1994; Bass, 2005; White et al., 2011).

ResultsA conventional exploration of cranial size and indices is

presented in Table 2. A high degree of size-based sexual di-morphism was observed within each of the ethnic groups. Therefore, male and female crania were considered sepa-rately in the analyses. The ‘Vedda’ crania were generally smaller than Tamil and Sinhala crania. There is a significant difference in male cranial size between the three groups [F(2,44) = 8.60, P = 0.001] and the male crania of the ‘Ved-da’ are significantly smaller than those of Tamil and Sinhala (P = 0.002 and 0.018, respectively). Univariate exploration of cranial indices showed that there were no significant dif-ferences when comparing the three ethnic groups. They were commonly dolichocranic, had high cranial vaults in relation to cranial breadth, with average facial and nasal breadth (Table 2).

A principal components analysis (PCA) using the Z-scores on all raw measurements was conducted to offer a more re-fined perspective on cranial shape. Due to the small sample sizes, the female crania were excluded from this analysis. The first four components explain approximately 52% of the total variation. PC 1 (24.3%) has high loadings on variables related to cranial and facial size (e.g. glabello-occipital length (GOL), basion–bregma height (BBH), bijugal breadth (JUB)) as well as variables that encode cranial height and facial projection from the Frankfort horizontal plane (e.g. vertex radius (VRR), prosthion radius (PRR)) (Table 3). PC 2 (11.0%) has high loadings on upper facial and cranial breadth dimensions such as interorbital breadth (EKB), bi-zygomatic breadth (ZYB), and biasterionic breadth (ASB). PC 3 (9.3%) expresses a focus on the upper facial region and parietal dimensions. Here, negative loadings on nasion–

Figure 2. Crania of males from the Sarasins’ collection: ‘Vedda’ (left), Tamil (centre), and Sinhala (right).

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prosthion height (NPH), indicating shorter upper facial re-gions, are discerned along with broader interorbital breadth (DKB). Cranial length variables (e.g. GOL and nasio- occipital length (NOL)) receive high loadings in PC 4 (7.3%). Other notable variables that include higher loadings in PC 4 are orbit height (OBH) and variables associated with the occipital bone. Maximum cranial breadth (XCB) receives negative loadings on PC 4.

Figure 3 shows scatter plots of the PC scores. When PC 1 and PC 2 are plotted (left), the Sinhala and Tamil groups cluster in the upper quadrants, with high loadings on cranial size-related variables (e.g. GOL, BBH, NOL), whereas the ‘Vedda’ crania scatter primarily in the lower quadrants, de-picting smaller sizes. In the scatterplots of PC 2 and PC3 (centre) and PC 2 with PC 4 (right), much overlap is ob-served. Overall, high degrees of cranial shape similarities are observed between the three ethnic groups.

The frequencies of selected pathologies (Figure 4) are presented in Table 4. Cribra orbitalia was highly prevalent (>54%) and commonly observed among individuals from all three ethnic groups (χ2 = 4.37, df = 2, P = 0.113). DEH was less obvious upon visual inspection. Although the Sinhala group shows a higher value, the difference is statistically insignificant (χ2 = 5.12, df = 2, P = 0.077). The Sinhala sam-ples showed higher incidences of caries (χ2 = 16.98, df = 2, P < 0.0001) compared to the ‘Vedda’ and Tamil, while den-tal abscesses were more prevalent among both Tamil and Sinhala samples (χ2 = 7.31, df = 2, P < 0.05) compared to the ‘Vedda’ individuals. A large number of individuals with-in the ‘Vedda,’ Tamil, and Sinhala ethnic groups had dark stains on the teeth associated with betel quid chewing (Fig-ure 4).

DiscussionThis study highlights the metrics and observations on the

historical cranial series of several ethnic groups from Sri Lanka, within the Sarasins’ collection in Basel, Switzerland. The majority of skeletal material in this collection is attrib-uted to the Indigenous Wannila Atto or ‘Vedda’ people. Cra-

nial remains identified as belonging to Tamil and Sinhala individuals comprise the remainder of this collection.

In this study the conventional cranial indices and the PCA of craniometric variables indicate that the ‘Vedda,’ Tamil and Sinhala people share a similar cranial shape. Early stud-ies of the ‘Vedda’’ have characterized these South Asian in-digenes as possessing ‘Australoid’ morphological traits, quite different from later migrants to the region (e.g. South Indian Tamil), who were thought to have ‘Caucasoid’ traits (Hill, 1941; Stoudt, 1961). The characteristic shape of a ‘Vedda’ cranium has been described as ‘dolichocranic’ or ‘hyperdolichocranic,’ with broad facial regions (Hill, 1941). However, the dolichocranic nature of the ‘Vedda’ cranium is not a characteristic that distinguishes it from other popula-tions of the subcontinent (Kulatilake, 2000; this study).

The Sarasins considered the ‘Vedda’ primarily from a bi-ological perspective (but see Streumer, 1997). The pheno-type of the ‘Vedda’ was thought to be different from other Sri Lankan groups (Sarasin and Sarasin, 1893). This view has persisted in the popular literature and collective imagination. However, anthropomorphic, dental, and genetic studies show only minor differences between the ‘Vedda,’ Tamil, and Sinhala people (Stoudt, 1961; Hawkey, 2002; Peiris et al., 2011; Ranaweera et al., 2014). These groups shared a common gene pool throughout prehistoric and historic times, and today no clearly discerned boundaries exist, mor-phologically (Kennedy, 1971; Bowles, 1977; Kulatilake, 2000; Kulatilake and Hotz, 2017), genetically (Ranasinghe et al., 2015), or linguistically (Dharmadasa, 1974; Brow, 1978; Dharmadasa and Samarasinghe, 1990). This study on the Sarasins’ collection of Sri Lankan crania further demon-strates that the ‘Vedda’ are not different from the other Sri Lankan groups based on their cranial morphology. However, ‘Vedda’ crania have been considered to be generally smaller in size compared to those of other ethnic groups of Sri Lan-ka, possibly due to encountering higher levels of environ-mental stress (Kennedy, 2000; Kulatilake, 2000).

Classical and molecular genetic studies show that the Sin-hala and Tamil people of Sri Lanka share strong biological links with each other; and are less connected to their ances-

Table 2. Cranial size and indices of the ‘Vedda,’ Tamil, and Sinhala

Vedda Tamil SinhalaMale Female Male Female Male Female

Mean SD N Mean SD N Mean SD N Mean SD N Mean SD N Mean SD NCranial global size (GOL + XCB + BBH)/3 146.3 2.6 21 139.2 4.0 15 150.2 3.0 14 144.03 3.1 10 149.5 3.4 12 141.0 4.2 5

Cranial index (XCB/GOL × 100) 71.7 4.1 22 71.8 4.1 16 71.0 3.2 14 72.5 4.1 10 73.4 3.4 12 73.1 1.5 5

Height–length index (BBH/GOL × 100) 73.7 2.9 21 74.1 2.8 15 73.2 2.5 14 73.9 2.9 10 74.2 2.9 12 75.1 2.5 5

Height–breadth index (BBH/XCB × 100) 103.2 5.9 21 103.4 3.8 15 103.3 5.4 14 102.1 6.1 10 101.3 5.3 12 102.7 2.3 5

Upper facial index (NPH/ZYB × 100) 48.4 3.2 21 50.2 3.0 12 51.0 2.5 14 52.7 2.9 10 50.7 3.1 11 51.4 2.1 5

Nasal index (NLB/NLH) 53.1 6.4 21 51.8 3.7 12 52.5 3.6 14 52.4 4.2 10 51.0 4.9 12 50.1 6.1 5

See Appendix for abbreviations.


tral groups in mainland South Asia, the Ancestral North Indians and Ancestral South Indians, respectively (Kshatriya, 1995; Moorjani et al., 2013; Ranaweera et al., 2014; Liu et al., 2017). For instance, Sri Lankan Tamils are more closely genetically related to the Sinhalese than they are to Indian

Table 3. Loadings matrix of the first four principal components extracted for the males’ Z-scores (‘Vedda,’ Tamil, and Sinhala)

Variable (Z-score)

Component1 2 3 4

GOL 0.6 –0.4 0.2 0.5NOL 0.6 –0.4 0.2 0.5BNL 0.7 –0.2 –0.3 0.1BPL 0.7 0.0 –0.3 –0.3XCB 0.4 0.4 0.1 –0.4BBH 0.5 –0.3 0.4 0.0STB 0.4 0.4 0.3 –0.3XFB 0.3 0.4 0.3 –0.3FMB 0.5 0.5 0.4 0.1AUB 0.6 0.4 0.2 0.0ZYB 0.4 0.7 0.2 –0.1NPH 0.5 0.3 –0.5 0.1NLH 0.4 0.1 –0.3 0.4NLB 0.2 –0.1 0.4 0.1WNB 0.4 0.1 0.3 –0.2OBH –0.1 0.3 –0.1 0.5OBB 0.2 0.6 –0.3 0.4JUB 0.6 0.5 0.1 0.0EKB 0.4 0.5 0.2 0.3DKB 0.4 0.2 0.5 0.1IML 0.3 0.4 –0.2 –0.1XML 0.4 0.4 –0.3 –0.1WMH 0.4 0.2 –0.2 –0.1MDH –0.3 0.2 –0.1 0.2MDB 0.4 0.5 0.1 0.3ZMB 0.6 0.3 0.1 0.2WCB 0.3 0.2 0.1 –0.1ASB 0.2 0.5 –0.1 0.0MAB 0.4 0.4 –0.2 –0.1FOL –0.2 0.2 –0.2 0.1FRC 0.4 –0.3 0.2 0.2FRF 0.3 0.0 0.4 0.2FRS 0.0 –0.5 0.2 0.1PAC 0.3 –0.3 0.7 0.0PAF 0.0 0.0 0.6 –0.1PAS 0.3 –0.2 0.7 –0.3OCC 0.3 –0.1 –0.1 0.5OCF –0.1 0.0 0.0 0.6OCS 0.1 –0.3 –0.1 0.7VRR 0.7 –0.2 0.4 0.1NAR 0.8 –0.2 –0.1 0.1SSR 0.9 –0.3 –0.2 –0.1PRR 0.8 –0.2 –0.3 –0.2DKR 0.6 –0.3 –0.2 0.0ZOR 0.8 –0.2 –0.2 –0.1FMR 0.6 –0.4 –0.3 –0.2EKR 0.7 –0.4 –0.2 –0.3ZMR 0.7 –0.3 –0.2 –0.3AVR 0.7 –0.3 –0.3 –0.2

Bold type indicates loadings with absolute values ≥0.5. See Appen-dix for abbreviations.

Figure 3. Scatterplots of PCA on craniometric data (males): PC 1 and 2 (left), PC 2 and 3 (centre) and PC 2 and 4 (right).

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Tamils (Kshatriya, 1995; Ranasinghe et al., 2015). The uni-variate and multivariate statistical results from this study of crania indicate that there are no significant differences be-tween the Tamil and Sinhala ethnic groups of Sri Lanka. Although elements of linguistic, cultural, and religious di-versity may differentiate these two groups, it is futile to draw biological divisions between them.

The pathological conditions observed within this sample of cranial and dental remains offer insights into diet and dis-ease among these groups. A high incidence of cribra orbita-lia, typically representative of iron-deficiency anemia, was commonly observed among all ethnic groups in the sample. Observations on dental pathologies indicated that the Tamil and Sinhala groups had high incidences of caries and dental abscesses. The high reliance on rice as a starchy staple food among the Tamil and Sinhala people has been documented archaeologically and in historic sources (Knox, 1681; Parker, 1909; Deraniyagala, 1992). The incidence of dental caries and abscesses among the Tamil and Sinhala people repre-sented in this skeletal series reflects the global pattern of poor dental health typically associated with high- carbohydrate diets of settled agriculturalists (Smith, 1984). In contrast, the ‘Vedda’ people in the collection had signifi-cantly lower levels of caries and dental abscesses. Many ‘Vedda’ individuals in this sample may have subsisted on a more varied, cariostatic diet. Following a stable-isotope analysis of ‘Vedda’ skeletal material housed in Great Britain, Roberts et al. (2018) highlighted the continued dependence on tropical forest foraging for subsistence among historic ‘Vedda’ people of the 19th and early 20th centuries.

A large number of individuals in the Sarasins’ collection had betel quid stains on their teeth. In Sri Lanka, betel quid chewing is common among many rural and urban popula-tions (de Silva and Punchihewa, 2011). Betel quid consists of betel leaves (Piper betle), areca nut (Areca catechu), which is a psychoactive substance, and lime (aqueous calci-

um hydroxide paste). Dried tobacco leaves are sometimes added to form the quid. In the Sarasins’ skeletal samples from Sri Lanka’s historic times, there were no apparent dif-ferences in dark stains associated with betel quid chewing between males and females and between members of the different ethnic groups.

This study presents a hitherto unexplored craniometric dataset. This dataset, included as an online supplement, will be useful to conduct comparative craniometric studies on global populations (Howells, 1973; Pietrusewsky, 2019). Culturally or biologically affiliated descendants are increas-ingly showing an interest in scientific studies of their ances-tors represented in skeletal collections (Turnbull, 2016; Roberts et al., 2018; Wright et al., 2018). Future collabora-tions can provide the scientific community with an opportu-nity to develop community engagement and a level of trust in the care and study of ancestral human remains.

AcknowledgmentsI have been privileged to study the collection of skeletal

remains of Sri Lankan people, part of my own biological heritage. Funding for this research was received from a Mount Royal University, Faculty of Arts Endeavour Fund Grant. I gratefully acknowledge the permission and access to the skeletal collection and facilities at the Natural History Museum of Basel and Basel Ethnological Museum, which provide respectful guardianship and care for the collection. I thank Dr. Gerhard Hotz, curator of the collections, for his enthusiastic support and assistance. This paper stems from my study at Basel (2015) and an exploratory poster (2017). I thank Liselotte Mayer and the Basel museums’ staff for their support and assistance. I am grateful to Pam MacQuarrie for constructing the map of Sri Lanka on ArcGIS. I thank the journal editors and anonymous reviewers for valuable in-sights and comments that helped strengthen this paper.

Table 4. Observed pathology of ‘Vedda,’ Sinhala, and Tamil crania and dentition

Ethnic groupCribra orbitalia Caries Dental abscesses Dental enamel hypoplasia

n (%) n (%) n (%) n (%)Vedda (n = 38) 25 (65.8) 10 (41.7) 10 (26.3) 5 (13.2)Tamil (n = 24) 13 (54.2) 8 (33.3) 13 (54.2) 4 (16.7)Sinhala (n = 15) 13 (86.7) 13 (86.7) 9 (60.0) 6 (40.0)

Figure 4. Pathologies and observations: cribra orbitalia and periostitis (left), dental caries (centre), and betel quid stains on the teeth (right).


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SARASINS’ COLLECTION OF HISTORICAL SRI LANKAN CRANIA 127A

ppen

dix.

D

escr

iptiv

e st

atis

tics o

n th

e cr

ania

l dim

ensi

ons (

mm

) of t

he ‘V

edda

,’ Ta

mil,

and

Sin

hala

adu

lt cr

ania

‘Ved

da’

Tam

ilSi

nhal

aM

ale

Fem

ale

Mal

eFe

mal

eM

ale

Fem

ale

Mea

nN

SDM

ean

NSD

Mea

nN

SDM

ean

NSD

Mea

nN

SDM

ean

NSD

Cra

nial

leng

th a

nd b

read

th re

late

dG

OL

glab

ello

-occ

ipita

l len

gth

178.

922

5.0

170.

016

7.1

184.

514

4.7

175.

410

5.6

181.

1712

5.5

170.

405

5.2

NO

Lna

sio-

occi

pita

l len

gth

175.

722

4.8

167.

315

6.8

180.

814

4.9

172.

910

5.6

178.

0012

5.4

168.

405

5.0

XC

Bm

axim

um c

rani

al b

read

th12

8.0

224.

612

1.9

164.

813

1.0

145.

012

7.1

105.

213

2.83

124.

112

4.60

54.

4A

UB

biau

ricul

ar b

read

th11

2.3

213.

810

4.1

165.

711

5.6

145.

611

0.9

105.

411

5.17

122.

910

8.60

53.

4A

SBbi

aste

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c br

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h10

2.3

223.

797

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5.6

103.

114

4.5

101.

410

4.5

103.

0012

4.0

97.6

05

2.6

XFB

max

imum

fron

tal b

read

th10

9.3

224.

210

4.2

164.

711

0.3

144.

410

7.2

102.

311

3.92

127.

510

5.40

54.

4FM

Bbi

fron

tal b

read

th96

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4.6

91.0

164.

598

.314

3.6

93.8

103.

398

.50

123.

393

.40

51.

5ST

Bbi

step

hani

c br

eadt

h10

5.5

225.

110

1.4

164.

710

6.5

144.

810

4.5

102.

810

9.25

125.

310

3.00

54.

3W

CB

min

imum

cra

nial

bre

adth

20.8

202.

318

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1.5

21.2

141.

820

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2.3

21.5

012

1.2

19.8

05

1.5

Cra

nial

hei

ght r

elat

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BH

basi

on–b

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a he

ight

131.

921

5.4

125.

815

2.5

135.

114

4.4

129.

610

5.2

134.

4212

5.9

128.

005

4.6

VR

Rve

rtex

radi

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2.3

215.

511

7.9

153.

712

6.6

143.

812

2.3

103.

912

6.42

124.

312

1.80

53.

3Fa

cial

pro

ject

ion

rela

ted

BN

Lba

sion

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ion

leng

th97

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92.5

153.

610

1.8

143.

197

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4.0

102.

7512

3.2

95.4

05

2.9

BPL

basi

on–p

rost

hion

leng

th92

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4.3

87.7

123.

398

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4.1

95.2

105.

998

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124.

693

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53.

5N

AR

nasi

on ra

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95.4

214.

291

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142.

893

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3.8

101.

0812

3.3

94.0

05

1.6

SSR

subs

pina

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94.6

214.

089

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3.7

98.4

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393

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4.3

100.

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4.2

94.6

05

2.3

PRR

pros

thio

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99.5

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593

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4.3

103.

814

3.3

98.7

105.

010

5.25

124.

699

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53.

3D

KR

dacr

yon

radi

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3.7

82.1

154.

287

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4.2

83.6

104.

389

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123.

384

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53.

8ZO

Rzy

goor

bita

le ra

dius

81.0

213.

476

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2.9

82.8

142.

980

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2.4

85.7

512

3.6

82.4

05

3.4

FMR

fron

tom

alar

e ra

dius

78.5

213.

675

.915

2.7

79.6

143.

177

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2.7

81.0

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3.7

78.6

05

2.7

EKR

ecto

conc

hion

radi

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3.0

68.1

142.

772

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3.0

70.3

102.

174

.92

123.

771

.80

52.

8ZM

Rzy

gom

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are

radi

us72

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3.1

67.8

132.

972

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2.6

69.5

103.

275

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124.

272

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52.

1AV

RM

1 al

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771

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3.4

79.6

143.

277

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3.0

82.1

712

5.5

77.0

05

4.2

Faci

al b

read

th re

late

dEK

Bbi

orbi

tal b

read

th94

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3.7

90.0

144.

495

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3.6

92.1

103.

395

.17

123.

387

.60

59.

0D

KB

inte

rorb

ital b

read

th21

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2.6

19.7

152.

021

.714

3.0

20.3

103.

021

.33

123.

520

.60

52.

6O

BB

orbi

t bre

adth

left

39.0

212.

037

.214

2.1

38.9

141.

337

.310

1.8

39.3

312

1.8

36.8

05

0.8

IML

mal

ar le

ngth

infe

rior

33.9

212.

929

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2.1

33.9

142.

932

.010

2.4

35.6

712

3.2

32.0

05

2.9

XM

Lm

alar

leng

th m

axim

um49

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4.2

43.1

132.

451

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2.9

48.1

101.

952

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123.

848

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52.

1N

LBna

sal b

read

th25

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2.4

23.0

121.

125

.214

1.8

24.5

101.

224

.75

121.

822

.80

52.

6W

NB

sim

otic

cho

rd8.

820

2.5

8.7

141.

28.

714

2.1

9.6

101.

69.

3312

2.1

9.60

51.

7M

AB

pala

te b

read

th59

.721

2.7

55.5

133.

061

.914

4.4

57.7

102.

861

.83

122.

557

.80

51.

3ZM

Bbi

max

illar

y br

eadt

h92

.721

4.6

88.0

126.

195

.914

4.3

91.4

104.

195

.18

115.

188

.60

53.

0ZY

Bbi

zygo

mat

ic b

read

th12

4.5

214.

111

3.5

136.

012

4.9

144.

911

8.9

104.

712

5.55

113.

811

6.00

53.

5JU

Bbi

juga

l bre

adth

109.

320

4.6

101.

014

4.3

111.

514

2.5

104.

510

3.4

110.

6411

3.7

102.

405

1.5

Vol. 128, 2020


App

endi

x.

(con

tinue

d)

‘Ved

da’

Tam

ilSi

nhal

aM

ale

Fem

ale

Mal

eFe

mal

eM

ale

Fem

ale

Mea

nN

SDM

ean

NSD

Mea

nN

SDM

ean

NSD

Mea

nN

SDM

ean

NSD

Faci

al h

eigh

t rel

ated

OB

Hor

bit h

eigh

t lef

t33

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2.3

32.6

142.

232

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1.5

31.5

102.

031

.58

121.

431

.00

51.

2N

PHna

sion

–pro

sthi

on h

eigh

t60

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4.1

56.9

124.

763

.614

3.0

62.6

103.

263

.58

124.

759

.60

52.

3N

LHna

sal h

eigh

t47

.821

3.2

44.5

122.

848

.114

3.0

46.9

102.

248

.75

123.

045

.60

52.

9W

MH

chee

k he

ight

20.6

212.

518

.213

2.7

20.5

142.

220

.110

1.6

20.6

712

1.6

19.0

05

2.0

Oth

erM

DH

mas

toid

hei

ght

29.2

213.

323

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2.9

27.8

142.

025

.610

2.9

28.6

712

1.9

23.6

05

3.8

MD

Bm

asto

id b

read

th20

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3.8

15.9

162.

520

.914

2.9

19.9

102.

821

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122.

118

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53.

3FO

Lfo

ram

en m

agnu

m le

ngth

36.9

202.

633

.315

2.7

35.3

141.

834

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1.3

35.3

312

3.0

34.4

05

2.5

Cho

rds,

frac

tions

, and

subt

ense

sFR

Cna

sion

–bre

gma

chor

d11

0.5

213.

510

6.9

152.

611

2.9

14.0

4.8

105.

610

4.7

111.

9212

3.3

104.

605

3.9

FRF

nasi

on–b

regm

a fr

actio

n50

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7.8

42.3

158.

051

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646

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4.6

51.6

712

4.6

46.6

05

4.9

FRS

nasi

on–b

regm

a su

bten

se27

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2.9

27.1

152.

426

.814

.02.

525

.410

2.5

25.7

512

2.5

26.4

05

2.1

PAC

breg

ma–

lam

bda

chor

d11

4.0

215.

710

8.9

166.

611

7.2

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5.6

110.

010

5.8

115.

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9.7

106.

205

3.1

PAF

breg

ma–

lam

bda

frac

tion

59.2

214.

855

.015

7.0

59.4

14.0

6.8

57.4

105.

158

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124.

157

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55.

0PA

Sbr

egm

a–la

mbd

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bten

se25

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3.1

25.0

154.

226

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724

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2.7

26.1

712

4.0

22.8

05

2.4

OC

Cla

mbd

a–op

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chor

d91

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5.2

88.3

157.

693

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493

.010

5.4

92.0

812

6.3

91.4

05

5.9

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Fla

mbd

a–op

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ion

frac

tion

48.5

218.

141

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7.8

46.5

14.0

9.4

43.6

107.

045

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124.

746

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56.

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CS

lam

bda–

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thio

n su

bten

se24

.621

2.4

23.0

153.

325

.114

.03.

925

.010

4.1

23.0

812

4.5

24.8

05

3.2

the sarasins’ collection of historical sri lankan crania

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