Acta Anthropologica Sinica ›› 2022, Vol. 41 ›› Issue (03): 450-462.doi: 10.16359/j.1000-3193/AAS.2021.0052

• Research Articles • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Morphological characteristics of Chinese head and face

LI Yonglan1,2(), ZHANG Xinghua3, SUN Zeyang3, YU Keli3, BAO Jinping4, ZHENG Lianbin3()   

  1. 1. College of Life Science and Technology, Inner Mongolia Normal University, Hohhot 010022
    2. College of Ethnology and Anthropology, Inner Mongolia Normal University, Hohhot 010022
    3. College of Life Sciences, Tianjin Normal University, Tianjin Key Laboratory of Conservation and Utilization of Animal Diversity, Tianjin 300387
    4. Institute of Sports Science, Tianjin Normal University, Tianjin 300387
  • Received:2020-12-08 Revised:2021-03-26 Online:2022-06-15 Published:2022-06-16
  • Contact: ZHENG Lianbin E-mail:liyonglan2005@126.com;zhenglianbin@sina.com

Abstract:

At present, there has not been a large sample report on the head, face, nose, lip and ear shapes in Chinese population. We completed a cephalo-facial measurement on 63,449 individuals from 115 ethnic groups and calculated seven cephalometric indexes, such as length-breadth index of head (LBIH) and so on. The relationship between the above-mentioned indexes and age as well as correlation among indexes, average year temperature and latitude were explored. The principal component analysis was utilized to study the index values of seven age groups. Our data presents that with an increased age, the head of Chinese people is becoming longer and lower accompanied by narrower face, wider nose wider, thinner lips and longer ears, which is also proved by the principal component analysis. The correlation analysis results show that with the increase of latitude,length-breadth index of head (LBIH), morphological facial index (MFI),derived from Chinese men and women increase, while height-breadth index of nose (HBIN) and physiognomic index of ear (PIE) decrease. With the increase of annual mean temperature,length-height index of head (LHIH),breadth-height index of head (BHIH), morphological facial index (MFI) tend to drop with an elevation of HBIN and PIE values in both female and male cases.Chinese male and female have a higher rate of brachycephaly and mesocephaly by LBIH. Both male and female are mainly hypsicephalic by LHIH, acrocephalic by BHIH and hyperleptoprosopy by MFI. More than half of people is mesorrhiny by HBIN, followed by leptorrhiny.

Key words: China, Head shape, Face shape, Cephalo-facial index, Age

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