Abstract: This paper reports on an anthropometric study of human remains recovered from the Shuangta site (2500 BP), a Bronze Age cemetery site located in the western part of Jilin Province. In 2007, the site was excavated jointly by the Research Center for Chinese Frontier Archaeology of Jilin University and the Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology of Jilin. It is estimated that the cemetery is dated between late stage of the Spring and Autumn period and early stage of the Warring States period based on artefacts, shapes of the tombs and radiocarbon dating. The radiocarbon dating was conducted by the AMS Lab of Peking University and the charcoal from the II M14 was dated to 2420±35 BP (half-life period of 14C is 5568 BP). The skeletal specimens are unique in the east district of Khorchin Sand Land at present and plays an important roles in studying the ancient racial type and also becomes an gauge in studying the archaeological culture in this region. These specimens were collected from the tombs of Phase 3 belongting to the East Zhou period and are relatively rare in Northeast China. Even more importantly, the East Zhou period is an important time that the nomadic people of the Mongolian Plateau immigrated to the south. This movement brought changes to archaeological culture, technology and life style. Those specimens from the Shuangta site filled the void and changed the situation that there were no human remains in this period. Nine ancient human skulls (6 males, 3 females) unearthed from the Shuangta site were studied. The physical age of the specimens is estimated from skeletal indicators, primarily pubic symphyseal morphology and relative dental wear, and the sex is determined primarily on the basis of the pelvic form and some features supplemented by the crania. Non-metric traits are as follows: cranial shape is ovoid; superciliary arch is strong among males and weak among females; structure of cranial vault sutures is simple. Males shows strong mastoid process while the female is weak. The majority of the individuals have orthorhombic orbit shapes and pear-shaped piriform apertures. The lower edge of the piriform aperture of male is dominated by fossao praenasales while the female is infantile form. As to the spina nasalis anterior, both the male and female show the low trait. The canine fossa is less obvious. The nasion depression is shown as 0 level while the shape of pterion is shape H. The shape of palate is oval and shape U while the palatine torus is dominated by ridge-like shape. The shape of chin is mainly shown as square and circular. Metric traits are as follows: cranial shape is brachycrany, orthocrany and mesocrany with large face width and low upper facial height. The other indexs show the characteristic of chamaeconchy, mesorrhiny and euryprosopy. The female has a shorter and wider cranial shape compared with the male. The authors applied anthropometrical methods to quantify the human skulls. The morphological features of the Shuangta crania show a racial type closely related to the modern North Asiatic Mongoloids and physical characteristics of these skulls indicate that they have close characteristic of those in the modern Mongolia population. The authors took a research on the racial type of the ancient groups in the Northeast China before Qin Dynasty, and pointed out the course of “Ancient Mongolian Plateau Type” distribution in this area. The main racial type of the Shuangta population are likely immigrants from ancient Mongolian Plateau. Migrating from the north Mongolian Plateau, “Ancient Mongolian Plateau Type” broke the pattern of racial type in the Northeast China region and brought there welldeveloped stock breeding industry. This brings a comprehensive change in the aspect of archaeological culture, technology and subsistence strategies. It lays a foundation for the final formation of Northern Nomads belt along the Great Wall of China.

Key words: Baicheng; Shuangta site; East Zhou Period; Human Skull; North Asiatic Mongoloids