Anthropometric affinities among the 20 endogamous groups of Dhangars of Maharashtra, India.

Abstract

Fourteen anthropometric measurements were used to examine the affinities among 20 Dhangar castes of Maharashtra, in a sample of 2437 adult males. The results are interpreted in the light of their ethnohistorical and geographical backgrounds on the one hand and with reference to the affinities observed on the basis of other biological variables, different sets of qualitative and quantitative dermatoglyphic variables and genetic markers, on the other. The configuration of anthropometric distances is largely conformatory to the geographical backgrounds of the groups, and there is no significant correspondence with the dendrograms based on the other sets of variables which are mutually independent among them.