A Preliminary Analysis of Geographical Variations in the Male Japanese Crania

Abstract

Based on 476 crania of modern Japanese males, the geographical variations were analysed using several statistical techniques. The factors which explain large part of total variance were extracted by a principal component analysis. Factors concerning cranial length, facial depth, cranial and facial breadths, and height of the brain case seem to be most significant for analysing geographical variations. The shape of the brain case shows an apparent difference between the eastern and western parts of Japan and the result is almost completely parallel to that of analyses on the somatometric data. The cause of such a difference is discussed and concluded that this evidence likely supports the hypothesis of admixture between the migrants from Korea and the native people who settled in Japan since the Jomon age.