A History of Assam c7.s1.7

c7.s1.7

The human race has been classified by Professor Flower under three main types—the Negroid, the Mongolian, and the Caucasian. The Caucasian is further subdivided into the dark group, which includes the Dravidians, and the fair, which includes the Aryans.* The Negroid type has its headquarters in Africa, the Mongolian in the eastern part of Asia, whence it overflowed into America, and the Caucasian in Europe and Western Asia. The predominant type in the population of India (excluding Burma) is the Dravidian. This type is distinguished by a long head, large and dark eyes, a fairly strong beard, a black, or nearly black, colour, and a very broad nose, depressed at the base, but not so as to make the face look flat. In the south of India there is a Negritic element which is thought to be derived from a stock akin to the Veddahs of Ceylon, the Andamanese and other tribes of the Indian ocean, and possibly the aborigines of Australia. This very primitive type of humanity may perhaps have drifted eastwards from Africa at a very remote period when the remains of the land area that once linked India with Madagascar were far more extensive than they are at the present day. The Negritic element is probably pre-Dravidian, but our knowledge of the very early distribution of the human race is still too rudimentary to justify any positive statement as to the relative antiquity in India of these two elements of her population.