EVIDENCE FOR ORIGIN OF CHINESE POPULATIONS:TIME AND SPACE CHANGES OF CRANIOMETRIC TRAITS
现代中国人起源的实证──颅骨特征的时空变化

The purpose of this study is to analyse the bine and space changes of thecraniometric traits from early Homo sapiens to modem man in China. For this study,the author collected 36 groups of human skull distributed to the north and south ofChangjiang River. The cramal specimens range from early Homo sapiens to modernman (including early Homo sapiens, late Homo sapiens, early Neolithic, fare Neolithic,Bronze age and present day). Sixteen items of the cranial measurements were used inthe analysis. The author used the Percent difference of the temporal craniometricchanges to compare and discuss the general trend of the cramal microevolution andthe origin of Chinese populations. The percent differences are used to compare levelsof the cramal changes in each other and are calculated by Frayer's formula (1984),namely subtracting the earner mean from the late mean and dividing by the earliermean. The results are shown in Table 2 to Table 6.According to the results of the analysis and the comparison, the severaldiscussions are as follows.(1) Judging from the comparison of the percentages of the temporal craniometricchanges, it can see that all of the cramal dimensions in the transition from earlyHomo sapiens to modem man, in general decrease gradually with bine except thecramal height (ba-b) and the zygomaxillary angle which increase gradually with bine.These microevolutions may be described in the following way: the cramal form isbasically the tfansition from the dolichocrany and the chamaecrany to the brachycranyand the hypsicrany. The facial form is basically the transition from the euryeny to themesony and the lepteny. The orbital form is the transition from the chamaeconchy tothe hypsiconctiy. The nasal form is basically the transition from chamaerrhiny to themesorrhiny in Neolithic and Bronze age and the leptorrhiny in modem man.To sum up, the temporal changes of the overall cramal morphology from earlyHomo sapiens to modem man tends to the continuous brachycranyzation, whilecraniofacial part is the transition from the robustious type to the gracile type.(2) The temporal changes in the cramal morphology betWeen early Homo sapiensand late Homo sapiens exist markedly the discontininty. In comparison with thetemporal changes of the cramal dimensions from early Homo sapiens to modern man,all of the horizonta dimensions of the craniofasial part in both early Homo sapiensand late Homo sapiens and late Homo sapiens tend to decrease with bine, while theupper facial height the orbital height and the masal height are gradually increase inthe transition from late Homo sap lens to modern man and are gradually decrease inthe trasition from early Homo sapiens to modem man. The most of cranialdimensions in early Homo sapiens even surpass modem man. The comparison of twomicroevolutionary systems reveals that the temporal changes in cramal morphologybetween early Homo sapiens and late Homo sapiens are disconhnuous or abruphybreak. It is may be seen that the skulls in