Abstract:

Head and face parameters are an important part of biological anthropology research. At present, there is a lack of comparative study of large data of head and face parameters in Chinese population. Based on the head and face data of 62 Chinese ethnic groups (53 nationalities ) and foreign ethnic groups collected in recent years, this paper conducts principal component analysis to explore the differences and commonalities of head and face characteristics between Chinese populations, and analyzes the differences of head and face characteristics between Chinese and foreign people. The study found that the head and face characteristics of the Chinese population are divided into northern and southern types. The northern minorities have higher faces, longer ears, higher noses and higher upper lip skins. The southern minorities have lower faces, shorter ears, lower noses and lower upper lip skins. The Han nationality is between the two. In the principal component analysis diagram, the loci of 8 Han ethnic groups are scattered among each other. The Han ethnic groups of the south and north do not form their own dense areas. Compared with foreign people, Chinese people have longer ears, narrower noses and wider faces. The head and face morphology of Chinese people is quite different from that of Negro people, which is relatively close to that of Caucasian people. The ethnic group sites with male and female as the main scattered point plots all form dense areas. The seven Han ethnic group sites all enter the loci dense area, interweaving with the minority sites, and there is no relatively independent Han ethnic group dense area. All these show that there is an obvious fusion process in the development and evolution of the Chinese ethnic groups. The East Asian region where the Chinese live is bordered by the sea in the east and south, by the Gobi in the north, by the mountains in the west, and by the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau and Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau in the southwest. The geographical environment is relatively closed, which limits the communication and integration between the Chinese and other ethnic groups, thus forming typical Mongolian physical characteristics. This is the main reason why the head and facial characteristics of the Chinese are obviously different from those of Caucasian and Negro people.

Key words: North Minority, South Minority, Han, head and face, anthropometry