Abstract: Metrical and non-metrical analyses of the midfacial region of the genus Homo reveal distinct geographical differences in mid-face morphology. This study analyzes the surface morphology of mid-face of recent East Asian, European, Southeast Asian, Australian, American Indian and African populations using 3-D geometric morphometric methods, to quantify characters that are otherwise difficult to capture by traditional craniometric methods. The results show that the morphology of midface efficiently separates different populations. The midfacial morphology of East Asian population is significantly different from all the other groups but American Indians, confirming the proposed direct affinity between the two. East Asian population shows the most different midfacial morphology to the African and Australian modern humans, but partially overlapping the European population, suggesting gene flow between the East and West sides of the Eurasia. The midface morphology of the East Asian population shows extinct features: the features along the midsagittal plane show little forward projection and lateral features expand laterally, i.e. facial flatness in the coronal direction. These characters are observed frequently in the East Asian fossil humans, suggesting a successive series in the human evolution in China.

Key words: Modern humans; Mid-face; Three-dimension; Geometric morphometrics