An Encyclopaedia of Indian Archaeology v1.c20.s2.9

v1.c20.s2.9

The human skeletal material recovered from excavations is too scanty to throw light on the relationship of the ancient peoples with the present-day ones. At present the major portion of India is inhabited by a medium-statured, mesocephalic or dolichocephalic, mesorrhine population. The population tends to have more dolichocephalic element in peninsular India, while occasionally there is an element of brachycephaly, as in the extreme s. All over India there are now areas of people with short-to-medium stature, dolichocephallic, chamaerrhine and mesorrhine population, known as Proto-Australoid (Guha, 1935). It has been held that this population covered the entire n. Indian plains at one time. The n.-w. portion of the n. plains has a tall dolichocephalic leptorrhine population. In parts of Gujarat a brachycephalic leptorrhine element is clearly pronounced. In c. India the Proto-Australoid types are predominant with various admixture from adjoining regions. The Ganga valley seems to be the meeting point of all physical types.