46 GIUFFRIDA-RUGGEHI & CM AKLADAR 



part of the peninsula : he supposes that among the Griij- 

 rathis, the Marathis and the people of Coorg the brachy- 

 cephals, who however are found in an appreciable propor- 

 tion, are of Scythian origin. It is easy to object, as 

 Chanda Itas done, 1 that the Scythians exercised a very 

 brief dominion over the northern and western periphery of 

 the Deccan and cannot be regarded as the progenitors of 

 an immense mesati-brachycephalic population. These 

 nomads of central Asia, who followed the Bactrians and 

 the Parthians into India in the centuries immediately 

 preceding and just beginning the Christian era, and are 

 generally known as the Indo-Scythians, were certainly 

 brachycephalic, according to Chanda, but too few in 

 number, as is demonstrated by the fact that in the north 

 of the peninsula, they have not succeeded in modifying, 

 in the least, the indigenous physical type which has 

 remained predominantly dolichocephalic. Much less, 

 therefore, were they able to modify the physical character 

 of the Dravidians of western India where their domini- 

 on was still more brief and intermittent : instead, even 

 as far as the remote district of South Canara, in the 

 coastal regions to the east of Mysore, we find the 

 cephalic index (50 Billavas) to be 80']. Evidently the 

 Introduction of the bracliyceplials must (jo back to a 

 prehistoric epoch, covering an area much wider than 

 that of the Indo-Scythians, as is seen from the examples 

 in Summary IV, which I have taken from Thurston. 2 



1 CHANDA (R.). P- c ^-> P- 67. The hypothesis of the Mongoloid invasion from 

 Central Asia to account for the presence of the brachycephals in Western and 

 Southern India, has been rejected also by CROOKE (W.), Rajputs and Maltralta*. 

 " Journ. R. Anthrop. Inst ," XL. 1910, p. 46. 



2 THURSTON (E.) and RANGACHARI (K.), Casten and Tribes of Southern India, 

 Madras, 1909, Vol. T. Introduction, Tab. A and B. The same data are also found 

 in part referred to by RISLKY, The People of India, op. cit. A pp. ITT, p. 398; the 

 serips of the Coorps I have taken from that work, p. 334; I have omitted the other 

 brachycephalic series which the reader may find in HIOLKV, op. cit., p. 898. 



