170 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 1 10 



Don, lived the Osetes/^ who use an Iranian language and are con- 

 sidered to be the remains of Sarmatian tribes. Ivanovskii, who ex- 

 cavated ancient Osete burials, discovered that 59.9 percent of the 

 crania were dolichocephalic, Gilchenko supposes that these crania 

 belong to the forefathers of the Osetes, the Sarmatian tribe called the 

 Alani. The present brachycephaly of the Osetes, described by Gil- 

 chenko (C.I. 82.16; 7.0 percent dolichocephalic; 16.0 percent meso- 

 cephalic), is attributed to subsequent mestization with Caucasian 

 peoples. 



In his work, "On the Influence of Turki Blood on the Iranian Type 

 of the Osetes," Kharuzin attributes much of this brachycephaly to 

 mestization with the Turki. Dixon believes that not only the dolicho- 

 cephaly of the Ukraine and steppes to the north of the Caucasus, but 

 also the admixture of dolichocephaly to the south of the Caucasian 

 range, among the Kurds and Osmanli Turks, are due to the migrations 

 of Scytho-Sarmatian tribes. 



The Scytho-Sarmatian world ended at the Caspian and Aralian 

 steppes only because that was the extent of geographical knowledge 

 of the ancient authors. We know from other sources relating to 

 Mawerannahr (Persia) and Asia Minor, that the Sarmatian world 

 extended much farther east, for example, the nomadic Iranian tribes. 

 There are no reasons to consider the "Scythians" or "Sacae" wan- 

 dering over the steppes of Turkestan as distinct from the Scythians 

 of European Russia. 



Thus on the basis of anthropological and paleontological evidence 

 we can, with an adequate degree of certainty, suppose that the Iranian 

 tribes which had once wandered in Mawerannahr were dolichocephalic. 

 From the evidence it is also seen that the sole source of of dolicho- 

 cephaly among the Turkomans were these nomadic tribes wandering 

 on the periphery of the irrigated oases. 



The information regarding these nomadic peoples ceases at an early 

 date. We know that as late as the eighth century the Arabs who 

 occupied Mawerannahr did not find the nomads. It is probable that 

 part of the nomads went farther south and are possibly represented 

 by the modern nomadic Iranian tribes ^- of Afghanistan, Seistan, 

 Baluchistan, and Persia. The present small admixture of dolicho- 

 cephaly was introduced in later years through the nomadic Iranians. 

 This admixture may have begun as early as the second millennium 



^^ See Henry Field's forthcoming work, Contributions to the anthropology of 

 the Caucasus. 



52 Data regarding these tribes were not available to Oshanin. Dixon states 

 that the settled Afghans (the "Pathans") were originally pure brachycephals. 



