Japanese Face

Abstract

Somatometric measurements were taken on the craniofacial area of Filipinos belonging to Sundadonty and of Japanese and Chinese belonging to Sinodonty. The migration of two Mongoloid lineages of Sundadonty and Sinodonty were deeply related to the origin of modern Japanese. The measurements were stature, head length, head breadth, head height, bizygomatic breadth, bigonial breadth, and morphological facial height accordig to the method by Martin-Seller and the morphological facial depth by Minobe et al. Craniofacial indices (the cephalic index, cephalic length-height index, cephalic breadth-height index, morphological face index, zigomatic gonial index, and morphological face depth index) were calculated from the measurements. These measurements and indices were statistically compared in relation to the three populations.
The results : With the exception of head length and morphological facial depth, the mean values of the measurements were largest in Chinese, and smallest in Filipinos. The Japanese had a significantly larger head length and morphological facial depth than the others (P<0.01). Namely, many items were noted with a mean value between the Northern Asian Chinese and the Southern Asian Filipinos. Each value showed results similar to those of the Chinese and the Filipinos, and in some instances, larger values were found in the Japanese results.
This would therefore suggest that the skull form of modern Japanese could consist of a mixture of the southern Jomon trees and northern Yayoi trees. The results of this study supported Hanihara's double structure model on the origin of Japanese.