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Assessing Species-specific Contributions To Craniofacial Development Using Quail-duck Chimeras
Published on: May 31, 2014
Craniofacial affinities of Mariana Islanders and circum-Pacific peoples
1Department of Anatomy, Tohoku University School of Medicine, Sendai, Japan. hanihara@anat1.med.tohoku.ac.jp
Abstract:
Metric craniofacial variation was studied in a number of skeletal samples that originated from the Mariana Islands and circum-Pacific regions. The broad comparisons including East/Southeast Asians, Polynesians, Melanesians, and Australians confirm the relationships between Mariana Islanders and East/Southeast Asians on the one hand and Polynesians on the other hand. A transformation of Melanesians into western Micronesians is not supported. The result of the principal component analysis indicates that the cranial morphological pattern of Mariana people shares the intermediate characteristics between those of typical East/Southeast Asians and several groups falling as outliers to more predominant Asian populations.
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