CRANIAL NONMETRIC TRAITS OF PALEOANTHRPOLOGICAL FINDINGS FROM EASTERN MONGOLIA

Abstract

Nonmetric traits or epigenetic variants of the human skull are considered one of the most important phenotypic expressions used in craniology. It's usefulness in considering biological differences between the populations were demonstrated by many researchers in the series of paleoanthropological survey and number of craniological studies (Berry & Berry, 1967; Ossenberg, 1970; 1976; 1990; Mовсесян А А, Mамонова HH, Pычков Or, 1975; Sir Won Seok et al., 1989; Lee Kyu Seok, et al., 1991; Ishida & Dodo, 1993; etc.) especially when distances based on them are interpreted in conjunction with cranial measurements and tooth morphology. 

The theoretical basis of such an investigation lays on an assumption that nonmetric traits of human skull are primarily under genetic control. Though these traits are not inherited in a single Mendelian pattern and involve multiple genes being remote from their phenotypic effects, it's development depends on an underlying continuous distributed traits and, as a result, has much common with a measurement traits of the skull. 

Thus, a research of the epygenetic variants of Mongols could be an important source of information not only in the problem of ethnogenesis of Mongolians but in ethnohistorical questions of Asian and Native American populations.