Tooth Crown Affinities among South Korean, Central Taiwanese, and Certain Japanese Populations

Abstract

To understand the derivation of modern Japanese, tooth crown affinities were evaluated among nine samples. Dental casts from two samples, Pusan and Hiroshima, were added to the materials from the Akita, Tanegashima, Tsushima, Okinawa, and central Taiwan samples of our previous study (Suzuki and Takahama, 1992) as well as those from prehistoric Japanese of the Jomon and Yayoi eras (Brace and Nagai, 1982). Cluster analysis (Ward method) was carried out on the mesiodistal tooth crown diameters of these samples. The relationships among the nine samples resulting from the principal coordinate analysis based on the Mahalanobis' distances were also examined by plotting them on the Euclidean coordinate system and discussed. It was found that the samples were divided into two groups: one group consisted of the Tanegashima, Taiwan, and Jomon samples, and the other consisted of the Tsushima, Hiroshima, Pusan, and Doigahama-Yayoi samples. The result on the Pusan, Tsushima, Hiroshima, and Doigahama-Yayoi samples may support a tentative theory that the people with the Yayoi culture, the major ancestors of the modern Japanese, resulted from a migration from the Korean peninsula to the Kinai area through the Tsushima Island. © 1994, The Anthropological Society of Nippon. All rights reserved.