The People of South Asia: The Biological Anthropology of India, Pakistan, and Nepal PDF
Preview The People of South Asia: The Biological Anthropology of India, Pakistan, and Nepal
The People of South Asia The Biological Anthropology of India, Pakistan, and Nepal The People of South Asia The Biological Anthropology of India, Pakistan, and Nepal Edited by JOHN H. LUKACS University of Oregon Eugene, Oregon SPRINGER SCIENCE+BUSINESS MEDIA, LLC Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Main entry under title: The People of South Asia. Includes bibliographies and index. 1. Anthropometry-South Asia—Addresses, essays, lectures. 2. Physical An thropology—Addresses, essays, lectures. 3. South Asia—Antiquities—Addresses, essays, lectures. I. Lukacs, John R. GN58.S64P46 1984 573/.0954 83-27058 ISBN 978-1-4899-5003-1 ISBN 978-1-4899-5001-7 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-1-4899-5001-7 © Springer Science+Business Media New York 1984 Originally published by Plenum Press, New York in 1984 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1984 All rights reserved No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, microfilming, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the Publisher For my parents JOHN ANDREW LUKACS, M.D. and ANN RHINEHART LUKACS with love and appreciation Contributors z. D. Ansari Department of Archaeology, Deccan College, Pune 411 006, India Catherine Badgley Peabody Museum, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mas sachusetts 02138 Amitabha Basu Human Adaptability Programme, Biological Sciences Divi sion, Indian Statistical Institute, Calcutta 700 035, India Cynthia M. Beall Department of Anthropology, Case Western Reserve Uni versity, Cleveland, Ohio 44106 Peggy C. Caldwell Department of Anthropology, National Museum of Natu ral History, The Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. 20560 Robert S. Corruccini Department of Anthropology, Southern Illinois Univer sity, Carbondale, Illinois 62901 P. Dash Sharma Department of Physical Anthropology, University of Ranchi, 834001, India M. K. Dhavalikar Department of Archaeology, Deccan College, Pune 411 006, India Pratap C. Dutta Anthropological Survey of India, 27 lawaharlal Nehru Rd., Calcutta 700 016, India Madhav Gadgil Indian Institute of Science, Center for Theoretical Studies, Bangalore 560 012, India Ranjan Gupta Human Adaptability Programme, Biological Sciences Divi sion, Indian Statistical Institute, Calcutta 700 035, India Samvit S. Kaul Department of Anthropology, Punjab University, Chandigarh 160 014, India John Kelley Peabody Museum, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mas sachusetts 02138 vii viii CONTRIBUTORS Kenneth A. R. Kennedy Ecology and Systematics, Division of Biological Sciences, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York 14853 John R. Lukacs Department of Anthropology, University of Oregon, Eugene, Oregon 97403 Kailash C. Malhotra Biological Sciences Division, Indian Statistical In stitute, Calcutta 700 035, India S. L. Malik Department of Anthropology, University of Delhi, Delhi 110 007, India Barun Mukhopadhyay Human Adaptability Programme, Biological Sciences Division, Indian Statistical Institute, Calcutta 700 035, India David Pilbeam Peabody Museum, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mas sachusetts 02138 A. K. Roychoudhury Biometry and Population Genetics Unit, Bose Institute, Calcutta 700 009, India Russell M. Reid Department of Anthropology, University of Louisville, Louisville, Kentucky 40292 H. D. Sankalia Department of Archaeology, Deccan College, Pune 411 006, India Jim G. Shaffer Department of Anthropology, Case Western Reserve Univer sity, Cleveland, Ohio 44106 Indera P. Singh Department of Anthropology, University of Delhi, Delhi 110 007, India P. S. Sundar Rao Department of Biostatistics, Christian Medical College, Vellore 632 002, India Subhash R. Walimbe Department of Archaeology, Deccan College Post graduate and Research Institute, Pune 411 006, India Steven Ward Departments of Anthropology and Biology, Kent State Univer sity, Kent, Ohio 44242 Charles A. Weitz Department of Anthropology, Temple University, Phila delphia, Pennsylvania 19122 Preface * The people of South Asia have long fascinated the serious traveler and research scholar with their biological and cultural diversity. Early descriptions of ascetic holy men and physical features of the "monstrous" races of India appear in the works of Herodotus (484-425 B.C.). Progressively more fantastic descriptions of the physical appearance of monstrous races of South Asia can be found in the works of Ktesias, Megasthenes, and Pliny the Elder (Malfijt, 1968). Detailed illustrations of these varieties of Homo monstrosus (Linnaeus, 1758) accompany the numerous encyclopedias and bestiaries published during the Middle Ages (Hodgen, 1964; Kennedy, 1973, 1976). Given the antiquity of Western intellectual interest in the cultures and bio logical features of South Asian people, it is surprising that a scholarly scientific approach to this diversity developed so slowly. Perhaps the great geographical distance involved and the cultural differences that separate Europeans and South Asians are partly responsible. Nevertheless, the discipline of physical anthropol ogy, whose goal is the elucidation and explanation of biological and cultural interactions, did not become established in the subcontinent until early in the 20th century. Today, anthropologists regard Herbert H. Risley's (1908) People ofI ndia as a landmark publication that established the discipline of physical anthropology in South Asia. However, until recently, physical anthropology in the subcontinent consisted of grand anthropometric surveys, which were often conducted in con junction with the Indian census (Guha, 1935). The goal of these surveys was to 'Editorial work and preparation of this introduction were completed during the 1981-1982 academic year, during which the editor received support from the American Institute of Indian Studies, the Fulbright-Hays Program, and the Smithsonian Institution (Special Foreign Currency Program). The continuing support of these institutions is deeply appreciated. ix x PREFACE detennine the racial composition of the people of India. Since the 1950s similar objectives have been pursued but with greater emphasis on data provided by serology and dennatoglyphics. Physical anthropologists working in South Asia have recently adopted a problem-oriented research focus, and they have demonstrated a commitment to analyzing biological problems in a broader cultural context. The prime objective of this volume is to reflect these recent developments by bringing together original research and review articles about the biological anthropology of living and prehistoric South Asians. Another message conveyed by this volume is that the unity-in-diversity concept, so often repeated with respect to South Asia's rich biocultural varia tions, also applies with equal force to the discipline of physical anthropology. As a physical anthropologist with research interests in the skeletal biology of pre historic South Asians, I was surprised to find a clear dichotomy among my colleagues. Paleoanthropologists and archaeologists appeared to fonn a natural group that was distinct from human biologists and geneticists. A second purpose of this volume, therefore, is to emphasize that paleoanthropologists and human biologists must collaborate in order to solve problems of human adaptation and evolution. The biological diversity exhibited by living South Asian populations is a consequence of repeated and successful biological and cultural adaptations by their ancestors to changing ecological conditions. The holistic view of human biological adaptation provided by physical anthropology requires an understand ing of adaptational processes, past and present. Though different analytical tech niques and research designs are employed by paleoanthropologists and human biologists, interpretive frameworks in evolutionary biology and ecology are shared. A book about the biological adaptations of living and prehistoric South Asians should reflect the contributions of both indigenous and Western scholars. This volume is unique in its equal balance of Western and South Asian authors. The editor regards this balance of authorship as a valuable feature of the volume because it exposes the reader to important differences in research methodology and design. Also, it indicates the range of topical interests regarded as important by scholars from different cultures and therefore may help to foster international cooperation in research on the biological anthropology of South Asia. Literature on the physical anthropology of South Asian popUlations is found with considerable difficulty because it is widely dispersed in the professional journals of many disciplines and because many of the journals and anthologies are published in India and are sometimes difficult of access to European and American scholars. The brief review of selected anthropology anthologies pro vided here should serve as a useful guide to relevant sources on the physical anthropology of South Asian people. This review will be especially valuable to those for whom South Asia is a new and unfamiliar area of academic interest. PREFACE xi Anthropological anthologies of the 1960s consisted primarily of papers on the prehistoric archaeology and sociocultural anthropology of South Asia. Con tributions in the area of physical anthropology, comprising about 37% of the papers in these volumes, were few, and they focused on the racial classifications of living and prehistoric peoples of the subcontinent (Madan and Sarana, 1962; Ratnam, 1963). In more recent anthologies such as Indian Anthropology Today, for example, papers on physical anthropological topics constitute a similar pro portion (39%) of the contributions. Published in commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the founding of Calcutta University's Department of An thropology, this volume includes three contributions on human paleontology and five on the biology of living South Asians (Sen, 1974). Edited volumes on human paleontology in South Asia are rare, possibly because of the absence of a Pleistocene skeletal record of early man, but also because of the lack of synthetic interpretive analyses of post-Pleistocene skeletal series. Chopra's (1979) Early Man in North West India focuses more on paleo environmental reconstruction than on the analysis and interpretation of the homi noid fossil evidence from northwestern India. The geographically and topically diverse selection of articles included by Ghosh (1974) in Perspectives in Paleo anthropology limits the usefulness of that volume. Only two contributions in it treat topics in human paleontology: Simons (1974), on the discovery and in terpretation of Gigantopithecus, and Kennedy (1974), on the paleodemography of Ceylon. The skeletal record for human evolution and the biological diversity of the living peoples of Africa (Hiernaux, 1975), America (Stewart, 1973), and the Pacific islands (Howells, 1973) have been described in a concise and informative manner in Scribner's People of the World series. The People of Asia volume in this series is disappointing, partly because of the great breadth of focus it adopts (Bowles, 1977). The seven chapters that comprise the third part of that volume are devoted to the "human pageantry of greater India. " Bowles documents the cultural history of the subcontinent well, but the absence of a biological focus is disappointing to the physical anthropologist. When an assessment of South Asia's biological diversity is provided-later in the volume-it conforms to traditional methods and objectives of morphological classification of racial groups. A thorough historical and interpretive analysis of the paleoanthropology of South Asia was prepared by Kennedy (in press), and it promises to be a valuable addition to the literature on human paleontology. Frequently, anthologies in physical anthropology published in India have a broad geographic scope that extends far beyond the borders of the subcontinent. The Professor S. S. Sarkar memorial volume, for example, contains only five contributions on the physical anthropology of Indian populations, with the re mainder devoted to the human biology of African and Eurasian peoples or to problems of methodology (Basu, Ghosh, Biswas, and Ghosh, 1973).
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