Abstract: This paper reports an anthropometrical study of human remains recovered from the Xinzhouyaozi cemetery, a Bronze Age cemetery site located in Liangcheng County, Inner Mongolian Autonomous Region. It is estimated that the cemetery can be dated back to the Eastern Zhou period by the artefacts, the shape of the tombs and radiocarbon dating. The skeletal specimens is important in the South and Central Inner Mongolia region at present, so it plays an valuable role in the study of ancient racial type in this region and has become an important gauge for the archaeological culture study in this region. The authors applied anthropometrical methods in quantifying the human skulls. In this article, 31 ancient human skulls (21 male, 10 female) unearthed from the cemetery were studied. Based on differences shown in the morphological features skulls from the Xinzhouyaozi cemetery can be divided into A and B groups. Morphological features of group A crania indicate physical characteristics similar to those in modern North Asiatic Mongoloids with the racial type closely related to the “Ancient Mongolian Plateau Type”. The group B is closely related to the modern East Asiatic Mongoloids and belongs to the “Ancient Central Plains Type”. Another significant difference shown in this cemetery is in the species and number of animals buried in different kinds of tombs. Horses, cattle, sheep, pigs and dogs were identified, but the number of animals buried in group A tombs is much more than in group B. This observation indicates that group A were involved with animal husbandry. However, the existence of pigs and dogs shows that agriculture also played an important subsistence role. The Eastern Zhou Period is an important time when nomadic people from the Mongolian Plateau immigrated southward. The change of the population brought a large revolution in terms of archaeological culture, technology and lifestyle. The existence of different kinds of racial types in one cemetery supports the diversity and integration of the population distribution in this region during the Eastern Zhou Period.

Key words: Liangcheng county; Xinzhouyaozi cemetery; Human skull; Ancient Mongolian Plateau Type; Ancient Central Plains Type