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5. RUSSIAN FIELD STUDIES OF ETHNIC GROUPS IN CHINA AND SOUTHEAST ASIA

RUSSIAN FIELD STUDIES OF ETHNIC GROUPS IN CHINA AND SOUTHEAST ASIA

Aksyanova Galina

Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia

Aksyanova Galina, e-mail: gaksyanova@gmail.com.

Abstract

The Russian school of physical anthropology is one of the oldest in Europe. Russian researchers have been actively engaged in studying modern and ancient populations in multinational Russia and abroad. In the 19th century N.N. Miklukho¬Maklay described several ethnic groups of the Malay Peninsula and Oceania. In the 20th century a wide range of methods and hypotheses relating to craniology, anthropometry, dental anthropology, dermatoglyphycs, and genetics was introduced, and further studies of various populations of the world were carried out. In 1956–58, N.N. Cheboksarov worked in China. He studied northern and southern Chinese and other ethnic groups in Guangdong – Huay, Yao, Miao, Li (see Ethnic anthropology of China, in Russian, Moscow, 1982). Data on the peoples of China are important for elaborating the classification of Asian Mongoloids. According to Cheboksarov, Mongoloids fall into the Continental and Pacific branches. The latter branch is divided into Eastern (Arctic and Far Eastern) and Southern Mongoloids. All native peoples of South China, Southeast Asia, and several neighboring regions form the southern Mongoloid area. Cheboksarov described the Eastern Himalayan anthropological type of southern Mongoloids together with the Tai¬Malay and Indonesian varieties. Anthropometric and dental variation in Thay (three local groups), Khmu, northern Viet, Cham, and Churu was studied by I.M. Zolotareva, A.G. Kozintsev, and G.A. Aksyanova during the Soviet¬Vietnamese ethnographic and anthropological expeditions in 1976–78 and 1984 (see in The Paths of Mankind’s Biological History, in Russian, Moscow, 2002). Three major phenomena were described: (1) contacts between Mongoloids and Veddo¬Australoids in Southeast Asia; (2) increase of Mongoloid features in Vietnam from the Bronze Age onward; (3) the affinities of the northern Viet with the Far Eastern racial type. In 1987, V.P. Alexeev studied the aboriginal groups of the Tay Nguyen plateau and in 1988¬90 V.A. Sheremetieva studied several groups of northern and southern Viet (unpublished results). East and Southeast Asia remain the key areas for field work and theoretical research.

Keywords

physical anthropology, Russia, China, Indochina, Vietnam

Цит.: Aksyanova Galina RUSSIAN FIELD STUDIES OF ETHNIC GROUPS IN CHINA AND SOUTHEAST ASIA // Moscow University Anthropology Bulletin (Vestnik Moskovskogo Universiteta. Seria XXIII. Antropologia), 2014; 3/2014; с. 64-64