Intragroup Variation of the Facial Skeleton in 16th–19th Century Rural Russian Populations in the Worldwide Context: A Principal Component Analysis

Abstract

This article outlines a technique for comparing cranial samples by studying their individual variation patterns against the background of worldwide variation using the principal component analysis (PCA). The training set consisted of 357 male crania from 27 populations of Europe, Asia, and North America. Our measurement protocol included 14 linear dimensions of the facial skeleton. As a test set, we used four recent rural Russian samples, while several series representing Finno-Ugric and Baltic populations and those of central and northern Europe were employed as reference data. The variation in the training set, assessed by PCA without any discriminant statistical methods, shows a clear pattern of between-group differences. The individual variation within the samples is very informative, revealing marked differences between the four Russian samples. While those from Nikolskoye and Staraya Ladoga are morphologically homogeneous, that from Kozino is extremely heterogeneous: its variation encompasses virtually the entire Caucasoid range. Compared to European samples including Karelians and Finns, Russian samples excluding Kozino are more similar to the Mordvinian series than are other European groups including the western Finns. This, however, refers only to intragroup variation because at the group level the Russian samples display no Mordvinian tendency. On the other hand, we found no particular similarity between the Russians and the Sami. In general, Russians are no more “Mongoloid” than most other Europeans, but the presence of several crania evidencing a Mongoloid trait combination should be noted.