Abstract:

The Pingcheng Era of the Northern Wei Dynasty is characterized by the integration of various ethnic groups. The sinicization initiative of Emperor Xiaowen of the Northern Wei Dynasty greatly promoted the integration of Tuoba-Xianbei and the Han peoples. Using a cranial morphology study of 82 human skulls from the Jinmaoyuan site of Datong, the following conclusions are drawn: The skulls of the inhabitants of this cemetery can be categorized as belonging to the modern Asian Mongolian group, and they show different degrees of similarity to the East Asian and Northeast Asian types. The germline purity test showed that it was possible for both sexes to have the same line, but variation was larger in women. The Jinmaoyuan group has the closest relationship with the southern Chinese group and the northern Chinese group, and the least close relationship with the Tonggusi group. Compared to ancient groups, the results of the principal component analysis show that Jinmaoyuan is close to the ancient East Asian groups, such as the Xinfeng and Shuiposi groups, and significantly different from the ancient Dongdajing and Pagou peoples, who mainly belong to the North Asian type. Combined this analysis with those ethnological, archaeological and historical study results, we believe that the people of the Pingcheng Era represented by Jinmaoyuan site has inherited the genetic characteristics of the indigenous people of the Datong region, and was also influenced by communication with and migration of people from the North, which is more obvious in the female people than male people of the Jinmaoyuan site.

Key words: skull, morphology, East Asian, ethnic integration, Northern Wei Dynasty