 He was the head of the Department of Anthropology of the University of Calcutta and is most known for his works "Prehistoric India" (1923), "History of Ameri-can Anthropology" (1930) and "Indo-Poly-nesian Memories" (1933).He was awarded the Fellowship of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland and today the Asiatic Society awards an annual ‘Panchanan Mitra Memorial Lectureship’ for outstanding contributions to anthropology.He was born to a well-known Kayastha family at Soora, an eastern suburb of Kolkata, India on 24 May 1892.