The biological affinities of Neolithic through Modern period populations from China and Mongolia: The cranial and dental nonmetric trait evidence

This study uses cranial and dental nonmetric traits to examine the population history of China and Mongolia from the Neolithic period to the Modern period. The main objectives of this research are (1) to collect data from the largest sample of East Asian individuals to date; (2) to include a wide representation of cultures, ethnicities, and time periods; (3) to introduce a standardized procedure for collecting dental and cranial nonmetric traits in this region, (4) and, finally to present this complex region to a Western audience.; A total of 1,364 archaeological and modern crania, and dental casts were scored from seven institutes in the United States, China, and Mongolia. Thirty-seven cranial and twenty-six dental nonmetric traits were scored. Dental traits were scored using the Arizona State University dental plaque system, and the cranial traits were scored using a methodology developed at Texas A&M University. The data was then examined using trait frequencies and the mean measure of divergence statistic (MMD); The samples were divided into four large regions to assist in the examination of population trends. The Central Plains incorporated all of the samples assumed to be ethnically related to the Chinese. The Northern Zone comprised of sites related to modern day Mongolians. Manchuria included samples from Manchuria, Inner Mongolia, and Korea. The Western Regions encompassed mainly the Europoid samples from western Mongolia and China.; The intra-regional comparison of dental MMD results show the sites within the Northern Zone and Manchuria were very homogeneous, while the sites within the Central Plains and Western Regions were more heterogeneous. When inter-regional comparisons were done, the populations from the Northern Zone and Manchuria were migrating into the Central Plains. The Western Regions were the most divergent and was not interacting significantly with the other regions. The intra-regional cranial MMD results show the Central Plains region was the most heterogeneous. The sites within the Northern Zone and the Western Regions were fairly homogeneous. The inter-region cranial comparisons show population movement among the Northern Zone, Manchuria, and the Western Regions. The Central Plains region is the most divergent, interacting with the other regions to a lesser extent.; These two different results can be explained by the conservative nature of dental enamel and the more plastic properties of bone. The dental traits exhibit the original ancestral relationships between these regions, with a time depth of several thousand years. The cranial traits may represent a more recent history of the area, revealing a shift in population interaction which occurred a few thousand years ago, possibly coinciding with the formation of two empires in the Central Plains (China) and Northern Zone (Xiongnu).