Contributions to the craniology of the people of the empire of India / by Sir Wm. Turner.

  • William Turner
Date:
1899-1901
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Contributions to the craniology of the people of the empire of India / by Sir Wm. Turner. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    of the female is about the middle of the mesaticephalic group ; both were orthognathous and platyrhine. The breadth in the malar and zygomatic regions was not so great as to give the impression that the face was markedly broad ; ])ut from the absence of the lower jaw the proportion between the length and breadth of the entire face could not be obtained. I’he general dimensions of the woman’s skull were small, and its cranial capacity, 1030, was in the lowest category of human skulls. In the man, however, the capacity was higher than is customary in the skulls of savage races. If we are to regard these people, and some of the primitive tribes in Southern India described by Mr Edgar Thurston, as prae-Dravidian, there is no evidence that they are Negritos. It is customary, in speaking of the existing natives of India, to consider that they belong to four ethnic types—Mongolian, Kolarian, Dravidian and Aryan or Indo-Aryan. The possibility of the presence of a Negrito element should also be made the subject of enquiry. The Mongolians or Tibeto-Burmans are found on the northern and eastern confines of India, and on the east of the Bay of Bengal. I have described representative people of this type in Part I. of this Memoir.* The Kolarians and Dravidians, on account of linguistic differences, have been by many writers regarded as two distinct ethnic types. It has been assumed that the Kolarian invaders had preceded the Dravidian, and had migrated into India through the north-east passes. The Dravidians, again, are stated to have found their way into the Punjab by the north-west passes, and to have spread into Central and Southern India, though others have conjectured that they came from the south and east.t They are regarded as older inhabitants than the Aryans, who are thought to have entered India, something more than 4000 years ago, from the Hindu Kush, the Pamir plateau, and the high valley of Cashmere. The aborigines of the hill districts in Southern India, the Central Provinces and the Lower Provinces of Bengal, have been described as in part Kolarians and in part Dravidians. Mr B. H. Hodgson, in his essay on the Kocch, Bodo and Dhimal tribes, | uses the term Tamulian as equivalent to aboriginal, and, whilst the people of the sub-Himalayan district belong to the Tibetan stock, and those further east to the Chinese, he regards those to the south as Tamulian, and as represented by the Kols, Bhils, Gonds, Oraons and Mundas. He is of opinion that amongst the Tamulians the physical type is essentially the same in all the tribes. During the last ten years, and principally through the influence of the writings of Mr H. H. Risley,§ the distinction between Kolarian and Dravidian-speaking tribes has come to be regarded as only linguistic, and not as representing difierences in physical type. “ The Male of the Kahjmahal hills,” he says, “ and the Oraons of Chota Nagpore, both of whom speak languages classed as Dravidian, are identical in point of physique * Trans. Hoy. Soc. Edin., vol. xxxix., 1899. t Sir W. W. Hunter’s Indian Empire and Thurston's Madras Bulletin, 1899, p. 195. X Calcutta, 1847. § The Tribes and Castes of Bengal, 1891.