NO. 13 SOVIF.T ANTHROPOLOGY — FIELD I7I 



B. C. contemporaneously witli the invasion of Persia by the same 

 doHchoccphaHc element. D. I). Bukinich, who led an expedition into 

 Afglianistan in 1924, noticed that the Iranian nomadic tribes'''' to 

 the south of the Hindu Kush were dohchoccphahc. 



Dixon similarly explains the admixture of dolichoccphaly observed 

 in Baluchistan as an influence of nomadic Iranian tribes upon this 

 basically brachycephalic people. Oshanin had no data on the cephalic 

 index of nomadic Baluchis, and none regarding the nomads of Seistan 

 who the Orientalists, according to Barthold, consider to be direct 

 descendants of the Sacae (or Scythians) or of the Se people of the 

 Chinese chronicles, who once wandered through Turkestan. 



In modern Persia, there is a great dolichocephalic admixture among 

 the Kurds. Oshanin thinks this is due to mestization of brachycephalic 

 Assyroid (\^orderasiatisch) race with the dolichocephalic Iranian 

 (Scytho-Sarmatian) groups. Dixon (p. 309) states that there is a 

 strong admixture of dolichoccphaly among the nomadic Lurs "* of 

 Luristan. Tiie nomadic Bakhtiaris living between Isfahan and Ker- 

 manshah are brachycephalic, but Dixon suggests that the widely prac- 

 ticed artificial cranial deformation may be responsible. 



It should be very interesting to investigate thoroughly the above- 

 mentioned nomadic Iranian tribes, since they may prove to be the 

 last remnant of the Scytho-Sarmatian tribes which had once wandered 

 in Turkestan. 



A portion of the ancient nomads must have settled down and become 

 mixed with the agricultural population of the oases. Traces of this 

 Oshanin found in the large deviation toward subbrachycephaly and 

 mesocephaly, with a few dolichocephals, arising, in the course of 

 Mendelian bifurcation, among the Sarts and the Uzbeks, That these 

 Plains Tajiks, who have become entirely Turkizcd in language, and 

 have become mestized with Turko-Mongols, are much less short- 

 headed than the Mountain Tajiks, who escaped mestization with the 

 Turks, Oshanin is inclined to explain by the admixture of the Scytho- 

 Sarmatian dolichoccphaly among the Plains Tajiks. 



Finally, a large section of Scytho-Sarmatian tribes was very early 

 completely Turkizcd in language and partly Mongolizcd in type, yet 

 they preserved in its purity the dolichoccphaly of their ancient original 

 types. These people are the modern Turkomans. 



53 Oshanin does not know if these were Dzhcmshids, and if so. whether the 

 latter are characterized hy dolichoccphaly. He dif! not have access to Ujfal\-y, 

 who described tribes to the north and south of the Hindu Kush. (H. F.) 



'* Cf. Henry Field, Contributions to the anthropologj' of Iran. Field Museutn 

 of Natural History, 1939. 



