NO. 13 SOVIET ANTHROPOLOGY — FIELD 163 



From an anthropological point of view tliis fact of the similarity 

 between the Aryans and the nomadic Turks is paradoxical. Present- 

 day settled Khwarazmians, both "Sarts" and "Uzbeks," are un- 

 doubtedly less similar to the nomadic Turkish peoples than one could 

 conclude from the words of Al-Mukkadisi. This is easy to under- 

 stand since during the four centuries following Sheibani's conquests 

 the Uzl)eks, who were (originally) a motley conglomeration of Tur- 

 kish tribes and clans subject to the Golden Horde, wandering in the 

 Dasht-i-Kipchak (to the west and north of the Aral Sea), having 

 absorbed the fragments of tribes which were wandering in Maw- 

 erannahr, managed to become settled, to become mixed with the 

 ancient Indo-European population of Turkestan, and to lose all degree 

 of purity of their Mongol traits. 



Consequently, the modern population of Khwarazm, whether 

 "Uzbek" or "Sart," does not differ in the main from the other popu- 

 lations of Turkestan which are predominantly Indo-European with a 

 small admixture of the "Asiatic,""* Mongoloid element. However, 

 it would be natural that during a millennium the degree of Mongoliza- 

 tion of the native Indo-European types should increase •"" rather than 

 decrease. 



According to Al-Mukkadisi the measures taken by the Khwaraz- 

 mian government in order to change the outward appearance of its 

 subjects, and to make them look less like the nomadic Turks, were, 

 according to Inostrantsev (p. 304) : "Khwarazmian women were 

 ordered to tie bags filled with sand on both sides of the heads of new- 

 born babies, in order to make their heads wider." In another place 

 Al-Mukkadisi ^® states that the Khwarazmians tried to cause the 

 heads of the newborn to become broader and shorter in order to 

 distinguish them from the surrounding nomad Turks. 



Al-Mukkadisi's testimony is corroborated by another authority, 

 Yakut ibn-AbduUah, who wrote, at the beginning of the thirteenth 

 century, that among the Khwarazmians broad heads and foreheads 

 were due to the custom of artificial cranial deformation." 



These data regarding brachycephaly also sound paradoxical. The 



'* After Giuff rida-Ruggicri. 



'* Mongol tribes were the masters ; cf. language, conquest, etc 



3« Oshanin admits that he does not ktiow whether Inostrantsev quotes Al- 

 Mukkadisi verbatim or gives a free rendition of the general sense. (E. P.) 



3' Rarthold checked the references from .M-Mukkadisi (Arabic text in 

 Biblioth. Gcograph. Araborum) and found the rendition of the sense "correct." 

 He thought that Yakut ibn- Abdullah's reference may have been copied by 

 Yakut from Al-Mukkadisi. 



