l8o SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 1 10 



ing forehead and extremely protruding occiput) have been found in 

 ancient burials in the Crimea,*'^ in the Don Region, and in the 

 Caucasus. 



Kerch crania are attributed to the period from the fourth to the 

 second century B. C. Macrocephalic crania are found in the areas 

 inhabited by Sarmatians, such as Osetia. On the other hand, dolicho- 

 cephalic crania from Scythian burials and from the ancient burial 

 grounds of Osetia described by Bogdanov ^^ and A. A. Ivanovskii ''* 

 do not include artificially deformed crania, so that Scytho-Sarmatian 

 dolichocephaly was of a racial character. 



Data regarding other people practicing artificial cranial deformation 

 in Central Asia are found in Chinese sources, which refer to another 

 Scythian people, the Sacae, known to the Chinese sources as Se,^^ 

 and to their eastern neighbors, known in the western sources as 

 Rushes, Kushans, or Tokharians, and to Chinese sources as Yuechi.*'° 



In the history of the Tang Dynasty (seventh-tenth centuries A. D.) 

 quoted by Bichurin,®^ the following is told of the people of Kuchi 

 (Chinese Kiu-tsi) of the extreme north of eastern Turkestan: "The 

 head of a [new] born boy is pressed by means of a tree." 



The same thing is told of the people of Kya Sha (Kashgar) : "The 

 people in general are treacherous and crafty. They also depress the 

 heads of male infants in order to make them flat. These people are of 

 tall stature and have blue eyes." ^^ 



It is, however, impossible to conclude on the basis of these texts 

 whether the practice was to elongate the heads. Bichurin does not 

 give any direct indications that artificial cranial deformation was 

 practiced by the Yuechi. He only states that this custom was wide- 

 spread in definite areas during definite periods. 



However, by analyzing the anthropological composition of the 

 modern population of eastern Turkestan, we come to the conclusion 

 that it has absorbed some elements of Homo sapiens indo-europaeus 

 dolichomorphus Giuffrida-Ruggieri, 



Stein found that the Indo-European element ®^ predominates in the 



62 The so-called "Kerch" and "Chersonesus" crania. 

 e--* Poltava burials : lOLEAE, 3, 1880. 

 6* Osetia: lOLEAE, 21, 1891. 



65 Nothing is known regarding their anthropological type. 



66 After leaving Jetty-Su they divided into two groups : Little Yuechi, who 

 settled in eastern Turkestan, and the Great ("Da") Yuechi, occupying the area 

 of present Uzbekistan. 



67 In Sobranie Svedenii, vol. 3, p. 218. 



68 Loc. cit, p. 244. 



69 Brachycephalic, hypsicephalic, and leptorrhine, i.e., Dixon's Alpine type. 



