Craniometric study of Central Asian population at the turn of the era: multivariate statistics versus typological approach?

Abstract

The article aims to assess the method of individual visual typological definitions in biological anthropology and compare it with the results of multivariate statistical analysis based on the cranial materials coming mainly from the Yuezhi / Kushan period in Central Asia. The database contains information on 185 crania. We have established that sex has a highly significant effect on the variation of facial craniometric traits, while the effect of artificial deformation is less prominent but still statistically significant. The PCA has shown that variation between the cranial types of very distant ancestry is captured even though the samples are small and variables are limited to the traits of facial skeleton. The PCA has highlighted the craniometric distinctiveness of the crania labeled as having Asian ancestry. The PCА of the sample of European ancestry has not revealed either the distinctiveness of the mixed European-Asian ancestry individuals or the differences between the two large morphological types within the sample of European ancestry. The differences between individuals of different anthropological types could be due to the effects of random variation which have been consistently interpreted as non-random.