Origins and Interactions of the Ethnic Groups of Greater Dardistan I: A Tooth Size Allocation Analysis of the Khow of Chitral District Brian E. Hemphill Abstract: This study has two objectives. The first is to assess allocation of tooth size across the permanent dentition of Khow females and males. The second is to investigate Khow biological origins in light of three models offered for the population history of Greater Dardistan. Mesiodistal and buccolingual dimensions of the permanent teeth were measured among 209 Khow volunteers. Principal component analysis was used to assess variation in the patterning of tooth size among Khow females and males. Discriminant function analysis was used to determine the accuracy of identifying Khows odontometrically by sex. Khows were compared to members of six living peninsular Indian ethnic groups and 12 sex–pooled prehistoric samples. Group centroids from canonical variates were plotted in three dimensions to assess similarities among samples. Principal components analysis identifies tooth size allocation differences between Khow females and males. Discriminant functions identify sex correctly in 74-83% of Khows. Canonical variates identify Khows as possessing closer affinities to prehistoric Central Asians than to prehistoric inhabitants of the Indus Valley or living peninsular Indian ethnic groups. Tooth size allocation analysis identifies systemic differences among females and males of living South Asian ethnic groups. Khows possess tooth size allocation patterns most similar to Central Asians, but not to BMAC samples. Hence, the Aryan Invasion model is not supported. Affinities between Khows and Namazga III inhabitants of Geoksyur provide weak support for the Indo-Iranian model, but long-standing residence within Greater Dardistan, expected under the Indigenous model, is also supported. Keywords: Odontometrics, Sex Dimorphism, Principal Components Analysis, Canonical Variates Analysis. Chitral’s location (Fig. 1) has had a major impact Chitral District covers an area of nearly 15,000 on its past heritage, for it is located close to the square kilometres and the land is dominated nexus of three of the world’s great mountain by ridges and spurs of the eastern Hindu Kush ranges (Hindu Kush, Himalayas, Karakoram) that form a vast network of high mountains and and though it is one of the most isolated regions deep, narrow valleys that present a jumbled, in Eurasia it has long served as one of the great difficult and inhospitable terrain that constrains link valleys providing a primary avenue for communication and human inhabitance the passage of people and goods between West significantly (Khan 1975/2013; Pervez 2014:2). Asia, Central Asia, South Asia, and China Chitral is bounded on the north and northwest (Guha 1935:x; Young, Coningham, Batt, & Ali by the crest of the Hindu Kush range. The Doral 2000:134). Although it is part of the modern Pass (4,300 m), exiting westward out of Chitral, nation of Pakistan today, Chitral has had strong provides access to the Badakhshan Province of cultural links with Afghanistan, Central Asia and Afghanistan, while the Broghol Pass (3,768 m) China in the past (Israr-ud-Din 1979; Stein 1921, provides passage to the Wakhan Corridor, from 1933). Indeed, while the prehistory of Chitral which southern Uzbekistan, southern Tajikistan remains largely unknown archaeologically, what and Xinjiang may be accessed (Pervez 2014:3). has been discovered supports the valley’s role as Historically, the former was used for small-scale an important causeway of contact between the trade and for the collection of tributes by the ruler populations of other regions (Allchin 1970:3; of Chitral (Khan 1975/2013:4; Shah 1974:24), Stacul 1969b:98; Stein 1921:35, 37; Young et al. while the latter was used as a primary route for 2000). caravans to and from Kashgar oases, Khotan and ANCIENT PAKISTAN, XXIX (2018): 23–99 24 Brian E. Hemphill Yarkhand in Xinjiang (Dichter 1967:27). To the mostly confined to alluvial fans or to certain river east, the Moshabar Range, a subsidiary spur of terraces where soil fertility coincides with easily the Hindu Kush, branches off just southeast of available water and these naturally occurring the Broghal Pass and runs to the Hindu Raj range terraces have been expanded and maintained at the Shandur Pass (3,734 m), which divides with vast investments of labor (Khan 1975/2013). Chitral from Tehsils Yasin and Gupis of Ghizer Villages are also located on the beds of former District, Gilgit-Baltistan to the east and from Swat river courses where similar conditions prevail District to the southeast before trending westward (Haserodt 1996; Marsden 2010:54). As such, the where the Lowari Pass (3,118 m) divides Chitral district’s two major physical features, topographic from Dir District to the south (Ali, Shah, Samad, relief and water supply, are widely recognized as Zahir, & Young 2013:79; Dichter 1967:27; Khan having modeled the valley’s social organization 1975/2013). as well as its settlement and subsistence patterns Fundamentally a steep, narrow river valley, the significantly (Haserodt 1996:9; Israr-ud-Din territory encompassed by Chitral District ranges 1996:19). in elevation from just under 1,000 m to greater than The inhabitants of Chitral call the country 7,600 m AMSL (Dichter 1967:29-30, 40; Haserodt Khow, dividing it into three sections: Torkhow 1996:3; Israr-ud-Din 1996:19). As such, Chitral is (Upper), Mulkhow (Middle), and Ludkhow an area of great physical challenges, with over 40 (Great) (Biddulph 1880/1977:59; Ibbetson peaks of 6000 m or more, alongside river valleys and Rose: 1883/1990:175). The majority of that run through steep gorges up to 900 m below inhabitants of Chitral may be found in a series the level of some settlements (Ali et al. 2013:79; of small villages located in the central valley Dichter 1967:42; Haserodt 1996:4; Israr-ud-Din (Chitral Valley or Kashgar Bela) formed by the 1996:19; Young et al. 2000:133). Villages and confluence of the swift-flowing and unnavigable cultivated areas are found between 1,000 and 3,000 Yarkhun, Mastuj and Torkhow Rivers, which m. Level ground is rare and hence cultivation is form the Chitral River. .. Indus Valley Pakistan ~· Figure 1. Chitral District and its location in the mountainous nexus of Central, South and West Asia. Inset: Sampling localities of Khow volunteers within Chitral District. Origins and Interactions of the Ethnic Groups of Greater Dardistan I … 25 According to the 1998 census about 350,000 Dardic branch within the large Indic (Indo-Aryan) people are residents of Chitral (Marsden 2005:14; family of languages (Fussman 1972; Masica Pervez 2014:13) and between 80-90% of them are 1991; Morgenstierne 1932; Strand 1973). These speakers of Khowar and self-identify as Khows include Khowar, along with Kalashwar, Shina, and (Decker 1992:11; Haserodt 1996; Kreutzmann the several varieties of Kohistani. In the northern 2005; Young et al. 2000). Virtually all Khows are two-thirds of this sub-region these communities Muslims, conversion having taken place between of Dardic-speakers are separated geographically the 14th to 16th centuries, and while between into a western group composed of Khowar- and 65-70% are Sunni Muslims, the overwhelming Kalashwar-speakers and an eastern group of majority of those residing in Upper Chitral are Shina- and Kohistani-speakers by communities Shi’a Ismailis (Decker 1992; Pervez 2014; Sloan whose primary language is Burushaski, a linguistic 2013). isolate (Lorimer 1935-1938, III:384; O’Leary, While Khowar represents the primary language 1992; Tikkanen 2015:305). The western sub- spoken within Chitral District, Khowar-speakers region, which includes a large portion of eastern are also found in the adjacent regions of Gilgit- and northeastern Afghanistan, is dominated by Baltistan and Swat. In Gilgit-Baltistan, Khowar- speakers of Iranian languages. Iranian languages speakers may be found across the Shandur Pass spoken in this region include Pashto, Wakhi, and in the Ghizer Valley as far as Gupis, as well as Yidgha (all Eastern Iranian languages), Dari and in the southern and central portions of the Yasin Farsi (Western Iranian languages), and an array and Ishkoman valleys (Bashir 1996; Decker 1992; of at least six languages assigned to the Nuristani Kreutzmann 2005; Radloff 1992; Schomberg branch (Morgenstierne 1974:6; O’Leary 1992; 1935:68). According to Lorimer (1939:19), the Strand 1973). Finally, along the northern presence of Khowar speakers east of the Shandur periphery of this western sub-region in southern Pass is a direct consequence of the Chitrali ruling Tajikistan are speakers of Tajik (a Western Iranian family’s success in capturing this region in the language) and, in southern Xinjiang, speakers of early 18th century, thereby initiating a movement such Turkic languages as Uyghur and Kirghiz of Khowar-speakers eastward over the last (Kreutzmann 2005). The tremendous diversity several centuries (Decker 1992:29; Schomberg of languages spoken by the inhabitants of this 1935:172; Sloan 2013). In addition, there are geopolitical nexus between West, Central, South small communities of Khowar-speakers in Upper and East Asia, perched in the narrow defiles of the Swat. “roof of the word,” has naturally raised interest in the origins and interactions of these peoples in Khowar represents but one of the more than general and of the Khow in particular. 25 languages of four different linguistic stocks (Indic, Iranian, Sino-Tibetan, Altaic) spoken in The objectives of the current study are two-fold. the region encompassed by the eastern Hindu The first is to describe and assess the allocation of Kush, Pamirs, Karakoram, and northwestern tooth size across the permanent dentition among Himalayas (Kreutzmann 2005). Some researchers Khow females and males. This investigation will have found it useful to divide this linguistically explore the degree of similarity in the allocation heterogeneous region into four subregions of tooth size between Khow females and males to (Kreutzmann 2005:5).