THIS ITEM CONTAINS RESTRICTED MATERIAL
These item contain 215 morphometric data cards on crania from the collections of:

• The South Australian Museum.
  
  
• Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University, Massachusetts.
  
  
• Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, Washington.
  
  

Each data cards is titled 'Peabody Museum of Harvard University Cranial Observations and Indices'. These contain the following categories of information: the Catalogue [Registry] Number; Sex; Area; Special Locality; Tribe; Observer; Age and detailed anthropometric measurements. Not all these categories have been filled in. These cards measure 21.5x16.0cm. Each data card has the registry number from their respective institution. Many of the cards are in duplicate, some of which differ slightly in the level of data they possess.

These cards have been ordered by Birdsell into 'Southern' and 'Northern' (Tasmania and Queensland) and 'Northern' types. On the top right hand side of most cards, Birdsell has penciled the letters, these relate to his classifications:
A: Southern
B: Primitive Southerns
C: Northern x Southern
D: Northern

Additional data relating to these data cards can be found in Birdsell Notebooks: 'American Museum of Natural History, July-August 1946' (see AA 679/1/5); 'Comparison of measurements between JB Birdsell's data and other morphometric data' (see AA 689/1/13); and 'Cohuna Skull et. al.' (see AA 689/1/15).

The Birdsell collection contains a set of photographs taken in 1947 (see AA 689/4/5/1 to AA 689/4/5/2) of Australian Aboriginal crania from the South Australian Museum collection.