Synopsis The book is a pioneering exercise in the bio-anthropological study among the two lesser known scheduled tribes of Orissa, the Bathudis and Sountis. The field work based on empirical data was generated from 59 different villages of Mayurbhanj district and have been compared with the similar earlier studies of various tribal populations from the neighbouring states. It has been established that Bathudis and Sountis show closer affinities not only with each other but also with the Bhuiya of which they are an offshoot and the Mundari-speaking populations. Their proximity with the neighbouring Dravidian populations and the migration that together have developed the contemporary population composition of the region inhabited by the Bathudis and Sountis. The collected data has helped to draw the conlusions with a higher degree of validity.