பக்கம் எண் :

Introduction43

to black; dark eyes; black hair, either straight, wavy or curly, but not woolly or frizzly; thick lips; low nose with wide nostrils; usually short stature, though the Australians are somewhat taller than the Dravidians. When the skulls are compared with each other whilst they correspond in some particulars, they differ in others. In both races, the general form and proportions are dolichocephalic, but in the Australians the crania are absolutely longer than in the Dravidians, owing in part to the prominence of the glabella. The Australian skull is heavier, and the outer table is coarser and rougher than in the Dravidian; the forehead also is much more receding; the sagittal region is frequently ridged, and the slope outwards to the parietal eminence is steeper. The Australians in the norma facialis have the glabella and supra-orbital ridges much more projecting; the nasion more depressed; the jaws heavier; the upper jaw usually prognathous, sometimes remarkably so.” Of twelve Dravidian skulls measured by Mr.William Turner, in seven the jaw was orthognathous, in four, in the lower term of the mesognathous series; one specimen only was prognathic. The customary type of jaw, therefore, was orthognathic. The conclusion at which Sir William Turner arrives is that by a careful comparison of Australian and Dravidian crania, there ought not to be much difficulty in distinguishing one from the other. The comparative study of the characters of the two series of crania has not led me to the conclusion that they can be adduced in support of the theory of the unity of the two people.”1

3) Dravidian languages confined to the area of pre-partition India

     All the Dravidian languages, now reckoned 19, are confined to India and Pakistan which together constituted the former British India, and no language of any form bearing close relationship to the Dravidian family is found to exist anywhere else, except isolated Dravidian roots and words that form part of the basic vocabulary of the West Aryan languages, both classical and modern.



1.C.T.S.I.Introduction,pp.XXXV & XXXVi