98 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
rough one. His conclusions have been tested by Dr. Guha in 1936. His Report on the subject forms a very valuable document in the field of Indian anthropology. The map [1] prepared by Dr. Guha on which he has plotted so to say the distribution of the Indian people according to their head measurements throws a flood of light on the racial composition of the people of India. Dr. Guha’s conclusion is that the Indian people are composed’of two racial stocks: (1) longheaded, and short-headed, and that the long-headed are in the interior of India and the short-headed are on the outskirts.
The evidence of skulls found in different parts of India also goes to confirm this. This is how Dr. Guha sums up the evidence on this point :
“The accounts of the human remains from prehistoric sites given above, though extremely meagre, with the exception of those of the Indus Valley, enable us nevertheless to visualise the broad outlines of the racial history of India in these times. From the beginning of the 4th Millennium B.C. North-western India seems to have been in the occupation of a long-headed race with a narrow prominent nose. Side by side with them we find the existence of another very powerfully built race also long-headed, but with lower cranial vault, and equally long-faced and narrow nose, though the latter was not so high pitched as that of the former.
A third type with broader head and apparently Armenoid affinities also existed, but its advent occurred probably somewhat later judged by the age of the site as Harappa from which most of these latter type of skulls came.”
Speaking in terms of the Alpine and the Mediterranean race, one can say that the Indian people are composed of two stocks: (1) The Mediterranean or the long-headed race, and (2) the Alpine or the short-headed race.
About the Mediterranean race, certain facts are admitted. It is admitted that it is a race which spoke the Aryan language. It is admited that its home was in Europe round about the Mediterranean basin and from thence it migrated to India. From its localization, it is clear that it must have come to India before the entry of the Alpine race.
Similar facts about the Alpine race remain to be ascertained. First is about the home of the Alpine race and second is about its native speech. According to Prof. Ripley, the home of the Alpine race was in Asia somewhere in the Himalayas. His reasons may be given in his own words. Says Prof. Ripley : [2]
1 See Appendix V
2 Races of Europe, pp. 473-74