India : People

Indian population is polygenetic and is said to be the melting pot of various racial mosaic. Few, if any, can claim to belortg to any particular stock. Nevertheless, many Indians pride themselves on their Aryan descent.

The species known as Ramapithecaswas found in tjne Slwalik foothills of the northwestern Himalayas. This species believed to ie the first in the line of hominids (human family) lived some 14 million years ago. Researches have found that a species rescinbling the AustralopithecusUved in Indiasome 2 million years ago. Even this discovery leaves an evolutionary gap of as much as 12 million years since Ramawthecus.

Races in India (as per classical pattern) According to Dr. B. s. Guha. The population of India is derived from 6 main ethnic groups:

Negrito,
Proto-Australoids or Austrics,
Mongololds,
MediteiTanean or Dravidian,
Western Brachycephals and
Nordic Aryans.

Negroids, the brachycephalic (broad headed) from Africa were the oldest people to found only in patches among the hill tribes of south India (Irulas, Kodars, Paniyans and Kurumbas) on the mainland. But they survive day of the Saka month are given below: in the Andaman Islands, where they have retained their language.

Proto - Australoids or Austrics were a race of people, with wavy hair plentifully distributed over their brown bodies, long heads with low foreheads and prominent eyeridges, noses with low and broad roots, thick jaws, large palates and teeth and small chins.

The Austrics of india represent a race of medium height, dark (and in some cases black) complexion with long heads and rather flat moses but otherwise of regular features. Miscegenation with the earlier Negroids may be the reason for the dark or black pigmentation of the skin and flat noses. Austric tribes spread over the whole of india and then pass on to Burma, Malaya and the islands of South East Asia. The Austrics form the bedrock of the people.

The Austrics laid the foundation of Indian civilization. They cultivated rice and vegetables and made sugar from sugarcane. Their language has survived in the Kol orMunda speech Mundari current in Eastern and Central India.