CRANIOFACIAL MEASUREMENT OF ARTIFICIALLY DEFORMED SKULLS FROM THE PHILIPPINES

Twelve artificially deformed and 14 undeformed skulls of Filipinos were measured to examine the morphometric differences between them. Univariate statistical analyses on the craniofacial measurements seem to support the conclusion by previous authors that the facial skeleton is not consistently affected by artificial deformations of the cranial vault. Mahalanobis' D2 distances based on craniofacial measurements suggest that the type of cranial deformation in the Philippines is similar to that of Chinook Amerindians in the North Pacific coast of North America. The anteroposteriorly deformed skulls of both Filipinos and Chinook Amerindians have smaller cranial length and larger cranial breadth, and the sagittal frontal and occipital indices tend to be closer to unity than in undeformed skulls. Mahalanobis' D2 distances further showed that Filipinos with no cranial deformation were morphologically closer to geographical neighbors such as Guam Islanders and southern Chinese.