NO. 13 SOVIET ANTHROPOLOGY — FIELD I69 



W'liilc wc have no craniological data regarding the ancient Scythians 

 of Turkestan, we have adequate data regarding the Scytho-Sarmatian 

 tribes of soutliern European Russia. The idea of connecting Turko- 

 mans with the Scythians belongs to N. G. MaHtskii. Oshanin first 

 attempted to connect tlie Turkomans with the Dinhns of the Oiinese 

 chronicles. The information regarding Dinlins is contained in Grum- 

 Grzhimailo's work entitled : "On the Blonde Race in Central Asia." 

 The possibility of such a connection was suggested by the Turkoman 

 tradition claiming that the original home of the Turkoman people 

 was on the coast of Lake Issyk-Kul. According to the Chinese 

 chronicles, this area was inhabited by the mysterious, apparently Indo- 

 European people known to them under the name of Wusuns [Usu-Ni 

 or I'suns]. Grum-Grzhimailo considers that the Wusuns were the 

 extreme southwestern branch of the long-headed Dinlin group. 



There is a mention of Nshun as a family name of one of the Ar- 

 menian Turki, who are closely connected with the Turkomans, dis- 

 covered by Barthold in "The Book of Korkud" in the Dresden 

 T.ibrar}\ Aristov (p. 417) identifies this name with the word Wusun. 

 I'inally, Thomson *° identifies the Uigurs and the Oguzes °° as one and 

 the same people. Grum-Grzhimailo considered the Uigurs as definitely 

 belonging to the Dinlin groups. 



Thus, the Scytho-Sarmatian tribes were linguistically, philo- 

 logically and culturally closely related to the Iranian peoples. Accord- 

 ing to Herodotus, the Sarmatians were but a branch of the Scythians 

 and their language was a Scythian dialect. Oshanin places the Scytii- 

 ians proper between the Boristhenes (Dnieper) to the west and 

 Tenaissus (Don River) to the east; to the east and near Tenaissus 

 extended the ranges of the Sarmatians. One of the Sarmatian tribes, 

 the Alani, reached far east, to the Caspian and Arabian steppes adjoin- 

 ing Khiva Oasis. According to Strabo (first century B. C.) the 

 Sarmatians moved farther west, and having occupied the Scythian 

 lands, gave rise to the mixed Scytho-Sarmatian population of the area. 



The craniological material was obtained during the 1870's by Sa- 

 mokvasov and Kidalchick from a tumulus near Aksiutencts close to 

 Romny in Poltava Ohlast, Ukraine. 



Ten out of eleven crania published by A. P. Bogdanov were ex- 

 tremely dolichocephalic ; the remaining cranium was extremely bracliy- 

 cephalic and was justly considered to belong to some indeterminate 

 group. 



According to Herodotus, in Sarmatia Proper, to the cast of the 



** Inscriptions de I'Orkhon, p. 148, 1896. 

 8° Another name for the Turkomans. 



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