A study on national differences in identification standards for Chinese skull-image superimposition

This study selected 15 nationalities as test subjects among 56 nationalities in China, each having a population of > 1,000,000 million and characterized by significant features in physical type. The test nationalities include Yi, Bai, Dai, Yao, Korean, Hui, Man, Zhuang, Miao, Dong, Bouyei, Mongol, Zang, Uygur and Kazak nationalities. Three thousand test subjects (100 males and 100 females for each nationality) were randomly selected to be photographed, tested and observed by means of somatometry of faces, photographs of facial landmarks and X-ray photography. In accordance with this result, an identification standard for skull-image superimposition was established for different nationalities and sexes. On the basis of this, we then made a comparison of identification indices between Han and 15 nationalities as well as a T-value test on the significance of national differences. The result of this study shows that the test values of indices for 15 test nationalities are all different from those for Han nationality and the difference greatly reveals regionality. For example, Han in the Northeast of China is similar to Man and Korean nationalities in the Northeast, but much different from Zhuang, Miao, Dai and Dong nationalities in the Southwest. The main differences are in head length, head breadth, alae nasi, nasal tip, mouth and zygoma, etc.