DDK HistoryF.p65 - CSIR

5. 1J ANTHROPOMETRY
of such measurements for separation of ethnic groups. Changes
in diet, living habits selection over a long period by famine and
epidemic, all have their effects which have been totally ignored!
On the other hand, most anthropometrists tend to select their
individuals to suit their own prejudices. When it is pointed
out that the millions of U.P. are represented by about a
thousand people measured, or that such conglomerate,
inhomogeneous groups as “ Telugu Brahmins “ by fifty specimens from
over a million people, the highly doubtful nature of the conclusions
becomes evident.
The whole of such anthropometrical research may be and
has been contested step by step, but that would take us too long
here. Our main objection to this procedure is that it takes no
cognizance whatever of changed physical measurements, birth-’
rates and population ratios due to superior methods of food
production. For that matter, these affect language too, though
indirectly. The ‘displacement’ of tribal people implies that
they were formerly settled where the main settlements now
happen to be. This is highly improbable, for the most productive lands
today either need heavy irrigation or were dense
jungle fit only for a certain amount of hunting in the driest
seasons. The best place for tribal settlements is just about
where they still survive, namely the hills of Central India, thd
Peninsula, Assam, and the lower Himalayas. Slash-and-burn
cultivation was, and still is possible here, as also a certain
amount of cattle-grazing, both supplementary to hunting or to
exchange with tribes that lived by hunting. There is no ques
tion of people being ‘ driven back’ from today’s fertile plains ex
cept perhaps in extremely small numbers. There is no evidence
whatever that post-Rgvedic Aryans found, let alone displaced, a
large autochthonous population, except in the Indus valley.
As soon as people take to regular food production from a previous
irregular food-gathering mode, they breed more rapidly. The improved
food supply means that more children are born, more survive to maturity,
more people reach old age. “ Aryan “ at the period under discussion
means war-like tribal people whq lived by cattle-breeding supplemented
by plough-cultivation. The Aryans were at the crucial stage where soon
the plough would produce much more than cattle. So, WHAT SPREAD WAS