Acta Anthropologica Sinica ›› 1986, Vol. 5 ›› Issue (03): 227-242.

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Anthropological characters of the human crania from Loulan Site Xinjiang

Han Kangxin   

  • Online:1986-09-15 Published:1986-09-15

Abstract: Six skulls from an ancient cemetery at Loulan site in 1980 are studied in this paper. The age of this cemetery, according to C4 dating, is about 2000 B. P. Among six observed skulls four belong to males and two females.
The morphological observation and measurements show that five skulls have Europoid's characters. These skulls mainly represent the natives of Europoid in the region, and their physical characters are mostly similar to that of Indo-Afghan pattern. One Mongoloid eranium is found in the cemetery. It is suggested that the ethnic elements of Loulan Kingdom did not consist of single race.
In the comparison with other ancient eranial series of Central Asia, Loulan's erania are more similar to that of Saka in Pamir morphologically, whereas, they are not homogeneous with the brachyeephalic Saka-Wusun's erania in Tianshan-Alei and Zhaosu and are close to that of Pamir's Saka in anthropological relationship. These Loulan's natives had exchanged with the population of Han Dynasty in culture from the archaeoIogic evidences.

Key words: Loulan site; Human skull; Mediterranean race; Indo-Afghan pattern