8 results on '"Sankhyan AR"'
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2. Statures of Prehistoric Humans from Fossil Femora and Humeri
- Author
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Sankhyan AR
- Abstract
The author has recently discovered six femoral and three humeral fossil fragments of the Stone Age humans from Central Narmada valley. The present study deals with the stature estimations of those prehistoric men by using the segment ratios and the obtained lengths of the fossil femora and the Humeri. The study is significant in forensic studies as well as in palaeoanthropology for understanding the hitherto unknown statures of prehistoric men and their biological adaptations and evolution in South Asia. The results show that very short-statured early humans inhabited the central Narmada valley between 300-70 Kya. This, couple with previous studies suggest that the short-bodied Narmada hominins constituted the ancestral stock for the subsequent similar late Pleistocene populations of South Asia, like the Munda and the pygmy of Andaman Islands, supported by the recent genomic studies that a common ancestor lived on Indian mainland around 60,000 years B.P., and these populations got differentiated about 25,000 years ago.
- Published
- 2017
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
3. A highly derived pliopithecoid from the Late Miocene of Haritalyangar, India.
- Author
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Sankhyan AR, Kelley J, and Harrison T
- Subjects
- Animals, Catarrhini classification, India, Biological Evolution, Catarrhini anatomy & histology, Fossils anatomy & histology, Molar anatomy & histology
- Abstract
The Late Miocene sequence at Haritalyangar, Himachal Pradesh, India, has produced abundant remains of the hominid Sivapithecus and the sivaladapids Sivaladapis and Indraloris. Also recovered from these sediments is an isolated and worn upper molar that was made the holotype of Krishnapithecus krishnaii and assigned to the Pliopithecoidea. However, the heavy wear and absence of definitive pliopithecoid features on the tooth rendered the assignment to this superfamily unconvincing. Here, we describe two lower molars from Haritalyangar that bear unmistakable pliopithecoid features and that are plausibly assignable to the same species as the type specimen of K. krishnaii. They convincingly demonstrate for the first time the presence of the Pliopithecoidea in South Asia. The new molars also reveal that K. krishnaii was perhaps the largest known pliopithecoid and that it possessed highly derived postcanine dental morphology. Because of its highly derived nature, it is difficult to determine its relationships within Pliopithecoidea, but a sister taxon relationship with either the Dionysopithecidae or Pliopithecinae is equally plausible; it is only distantly related to the Crouzeliinae. It is sufficiently distinct, however, from all other pliopithecoids to warrant placement in a separate family., (Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)
- Published
- 2017
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
4. A first possible chameleon from the late Miocene of India (the hominoid site of Haritalyangar): a tentative evidence for an Asian dispersal of chameleons.
- Author
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Sankhyan AR and Čerňanský A
- Subjects
- Animal Distribution, Animals, Biological Evolution, India, Lizards classification, Fossils, Lizards physiology
- Abstract
Miocene rare fossils from India, tentatively attributed to chameleons, are described for the first time. The material consists of a fragment of the left squamosal and an element interpreted as a posterodorsal process of the parietal. The specimens come from a late Miocene site of the Nagri Formation (Middle Siwaliks, ~ 9 Mya) at Haritalyangar, North India. This material presents a possible evidence for a chameleon dispersal to Asia. Based on molecular data, the dispersion of an Asian chamaeleonid lineage from Africa to Arabia/Asia is dated at approximately 13 Mya and its diversification in situ at around 6-8 Mya. However, till now, no Miocene-age fossil record has been described to support crown chamaeleonid presence in this area. The material described herein is very fragmented. If correctly allocated, the Haritalyangar chameleons show the oldest known occurrence of this clade in India, at least approximately 9 Mya ago.
- Published
- 2016
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
5. A peaceful realm? Trauma and social differentiation at Harappa.
- Author
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Robbins Schug G, Gray K, Mushrif-Tripathy V, and Sankhyan AR
- Abstract
Thousands of settlements stippled the third millennium B.C. landscape of Pakistan and northwest India. These communities maintained an extensive exchange network that spanned West and South Asia. They shared remarkably consistent symbolic and ideological systems despite a vast territory, including an undeciphered script, standardized weights, measures, sanitation and subsistence systems, and settlement planning. The city of Harappa (3300-1300B.C.) sits at the center of this Indus River Valley Civilization. The relatively large skeletal collection from Harappa offers an opportunity to examine biocultural aspects of urban life and its decline in South Asian prehistory. This paper compares evidence for cranial trauma among burial populations at Harappa through time to assess the hypothesis that Indus state formation occurred as a peaceful heterarchy. The prevalence and patterning of cranial injuries, combined with striking differences in mortuary treatment and demography among the three burial areas indicate interpersonal violence in Harappan society was structured along lines of gender and community membership. The results support a relationship at Harappa among urbanization, access to resources, social differentiation, and risk of interpersonal violence. Further, the results contradict the dehumanizing, unrealistic myth of the Indus Civilization as an exceptionally peaceful prehistoric urban civilization., (Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)
- Published
- 2012
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
6. Fossil clavicle of a middle Pleistocene hominid from the Central Narmada Valley, India.
- Author
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Sankhyan AR
- Subjects
- Animals, Female, Hominidae classification, Humans, India, Clavicle anatomy & histology, Fossils, Hominidae anatomy & histology
- Abstract
The discovery of a Middle Pleistocene hominid clavicle is reported here. This discovery is particularly important because clavicles are hitherto unrepresented in the fossil record of Asia. The Narmada clavicle comes from the Boulder Conglomerate horizon at Hathnora near Hoshangabad in the Central Narmada Valley. This is the same deposit that previously yielded the Homo erectus/archaic Homo sapiens partial cranium, which has recently been dated to between 0.2 and 0.7 ma (million years ago). The specimen has some unusual morphology and is a very short and robust bone, far shorter than even the early African Homo erectus clavicles. It is about the size that would be expected in an adult human pygmy. This discovery reopens the debate on the taxonomic position of the Narmada hominid in human ancestry.
- Published
- 1997
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
7. Reproductive life of Bhoksa women.
- Author
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Garg SK, Tyagi D, and Sankhyan AR
- Subjects
- Age Factors, Female, Fertility, Fetal Death, Humans, India, Marriage, Mortality, Pregnancy, Reproduction
- Abstract
The paper discusses the reproductive life of 111 ever-married Bhoksa women. The mean age at marriage for women of all ages among Bhoksas, like other tribal populations, is high, unlike the caste populations. The mean ages at first birth of the pooled sample and of the completed fertility cases suggest late and early marriages of the older and younger generations. The maximum number of marriages occur between 15 and 19 years and of first births between 16 and 20 years. Percentage of reproductive wastage is high in both the lower and higher age groups. Young mothers with low birth orders and older mothers with high birth orders display a high frequency of reproductive wastage. Evidently, both birth order and the age of the mother have effects on reproductive wastage. Average number of children ever born (including stillbirth but not abortion or miscarriage) per mother of all ages is the highest among Bhoksas of all the studied ethnic groups of India. The Bhoksa, like caste populations, show a high number of children ever born per mother of completed fertility. Quite a high masculinity in the secondary sex ratio, like other mongoloid population is noticed. The contribution of mortality component to the Total Index of Opportunity for Selection is more than that of the fertility component. Bhoksas conform to the general low range of net reproductive index, which is however greater than unity, suggesting that they are in a growth stage.
- Published
- 1981
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
8. Isonymy in two Punjabi isolates of India.
- Author
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Sankhyan AR and Bhatnagar BR
- Subjects
- Female, Humans, India, Male, Marriage, Mathematics, Consanguinity, Models, Genetic
- Abstract
Inbreeding coefficients and effective migrants for the immigrant Punjabi Khattri and Arora of Delhi were estimated from isonymous marriages by five methods: sigma qm2, sigma qf2, sigma qm qf, sigma qm2+f and sigma Ie (pair). It was found that the method sigma qmqf gives better estimates as expected by the isonymy method -- sigma Ie (Pair). A higher estimate of the random inbreeding coefficient suggests that Arora is more inbred than Khattri. The lesser number of effective migrants observed for Aroras also points to their relatively isolated nature. The two groups however, behave as one broad endogamous-panmictic unit.
- Published
- 1980
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