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188present a couple of brief historical examples of the stability of musical traditions from thecultures I know:(1) Ossetians live on both sides of the central part of the Caucasian mountainrange. They speak the Indo-Iranian language and were considered to be the descendantsof the Medieval Indo-Iranian tribe Alans. A study of the physical features ofcontemporary Ossetians, Medieval Alans, and the earlier Caucasian population of thisregion suggested that the Indo-European (Indo-Iranian) Alans in fact did not have muchimpact on the genetic make-up of the Ossetians (Alexeev, 1974a:197-200). On the otherhand there is a clear morphologic continuum between the earlier Caucasian populationand contemporary Ossetians. Therefore, the change of language must have occurredwithout a change of the major part of the indigenous population. Scholars are well awareof such cases when language is lost without the population replacement. The music of theOssetians, unlike their language, shows a clear relationship with other, indigenousCaucasian populations. This brings us to the conclusion that although the old Ossetianpopulation of the Central Caucasian Mountains lost their language, their musicaltraditions survived the painful process of their cultural assimilation.(2) The neighboring Balkarians and Karachaevis represent the same kind ofhistorical story. Both of them speak the Turkic language, are Moslems, and were believedto be the descendants of late medieval Turkic tribes who brought the Turkic language andMoslem religion to the North Caucasus in the 16 th -17 th centuries. Anthropologicalsurveys of the Balkarian and Karachaevian populations proved that, as in the case of theOssetians, there has been no serious trace of a genetic relationship between theBalkarians and Karachaevis on one side, and the population of the late medieval Turkicnewcomers on the other side. Instead, there is an obvious genetic continuum between theearlier Caucasian population and the Balkarian and Karachaevian populations (Alexeev,1974a:200-203). This means that the old Caucasian population adopted the new languageand religion without being physically replaced by the carriers of this new language andculture. Their music, unlike their language, has not been assimilated in this process.Therefore, the contemporary musical traditions of all North Caucasian peoples, togetherwith their physical morphology, demonstrate the survival of the genetic and cultural unityof the indigenous populations of Caucasia.(3) Another example of the solid stability of musical traditions could be theBalkan mountainous region. This region is a tapestry of different Indo-Europeanlanguages, at least two major religions and countless cultural traditions. At the same time,physical anthropologists propose that the populations of the mountainous regions of theBalkans show the obvious signs of (1) morphological unity within the Balkan mountainranges, and (2) a genetic continuum from the ancient pre-Indo-European population (theso-called “Dinarian” anthropologic type). This ancient “Dinarian” type is the bestrepresented among the populations of southwestern Bulgaria, of northern mountainousGreece, mountain Albania, Macedonia, Serbia, Montenegro, Croatia, Bosnia andHerzegovina. These populations currently have different languages and differentreligions, which means that new languages and religions spread here without thereplacement of the major part of the indigenous population. On the other hand, music alsoshows clear signs of the ancient unity of all these regions. Drone type of polyphony withspecific frictional (secondal) harmonies is spread throughout virtually the samemountainous regions as the Dinaric physical anthropologic type: southwestern Bulgaria,