Anthropological Study on the Facial Flatness of Korean from the Historic to the Modern Period / 체질인류학회지

ABSTRACT

The facial flatness was studied by the metric method which involves six measurements of breadth and projection of the midfacial skeleton, the calculation of three indices from the measurements. The indices of the modern Korean adult crania, Korea & Chosun Dynasty crania, the Iron Age Korean crania, and the late Neolithic Korean crania were investigated. The indices were compared to those of other published data on the Korean crania and those of neighboring asian races as well. All indices for facial flatness of Korea & Chosun Dynasty were similar to modern Korean. However, zygomaxillary index was different between modern and late Neolithic crania. The difference of zygomaxillary index was prominent in males than females. The difference of facial flatness between modern and ancient seems to be mainly due to zygomatic breadth. The frontal indices of modern Korean and Korea & Chosun Dynasty crania were relatively low and the simotic indices were relatively high among neighboring asian races. The zygomaxillary index is intermediate. Clustering analysis represented that the flatnesses of the modern Korean crania and Korea & Chosun Dynasty crania were closely related to those of the northern Chinese, modern Japanese, however, somewhat different from that of ancient Korean, Mongol, Siberian etc.