Morphometric variation among the Central Indian populations

Data on 8 anthropometric characters of 6663 adult males belonging to 22 caste groups, distributed in 38 districts of Central India were taken for present investigation, to study the morphometric variation. Cephalic index, nasal Index, Generalized Mahalanobis distances and its size and shape components were computed and dendrograms were drawn. Comparison of coefficient of variations shows that there exists variation in nasal breadth, nasal length, weight and hence in nasal index. But no marked variation was seen in respect of other anthropometric variables. Comparison of Mahalanobis distances leads to some close clusters among the caste groups, but many of the caste groups remained separated from other caste groups keeping their identities.