A higher density of evidence in terms of both temporal and geographical variation is needed for the understanding of the population history of East/Southeast Asia. We report here two skulls of the hanging coffin people from the ancient Tang dynasty of Yunnan province, China, and compare them with other Neolithic to modern human groups of East/Southeast Asia. The cranial series of the hanging coffin people can be regarded as a single population distinctive among the comparative samples. They share a low and wide face but exhibit variation in nasal root protrusion and alveolar prognathism. Evaluation of biological affinities based on multivariate craniometry indicates that the hanging coffin people are unique, being distant from modern mainland Asian groups and rather close to the Neolithic Zhenpiyan of south China. The peripheral position of the hanging coffin people relative to the mainland Asian groups appears to parallel the situation seen with modern Andaman islanders, or aboriginal Australians. This is interpreted as indicating the influence of a bottleneck effect in a locally isolated population within a more global trend of population history of East/Southeast Asian.

Catarrhines originated in Afro-Arabia during the Paleogene, and were restricted to this zoogeographic province until the early Miocene. During this period of isolation, several major clades of catarrhines originated. The pliopithecoids were the first catarrhines to migrate out of Africa at ~18–20 Ma, while contemporary proconsulids and dendropithecids may have been restricted to Afro-Arabia. Hominoids and Old World monkeys originated in Africa prior to 20 Ma, but neither clade became an important component of the catarrhine fauna until the middle to late Miocene. At ~15–17 Ma, hominoids expanded into Eurasia, while cercopithecids arrived somewhat later, during the late Miocene. The earliest catarrhines in Eurasia, Dionysopithecus and Platodontopithecus from Sihong in China (~17–18 Ma), represent the primitive sister group of all other pliopithecoids. From this ancestral stock in Asia, the more specialized pliopithecines extended their range westwards into Europe by ~16–17 Ma, where a pliopithecine-like common ancestor gave rise to the crouzeliines. The only known crouzeliine from Asia, Laccopithecus, from the late Miocene of China, points to a late arrival of this clade in the region. Small catarrhines from the middle Miocene of Pakistan (~16–17 Ma), and new material from China, may possibly have closer ties with dendropithecids, proconsulids, or hylobatids.

The relationship between the Yuanmou hominoid and the Lufeng hominoid (Lufengpithecus lufengensis), both from Yunnan Province, China, and among the most abundantly represented fossil hominoid of Eurasia, has been the subject of much debate. In the past 10 years, comparative studies of cranial and dental morphology of the Lufeng and Yuanmou hominoids indicate that the two hominoids resemble each other more than either of them resemble any other Miocene hominoid. In this paper, we summarize the dental differences seen between the Yuanmou and Lufeng hominoids, and discuss their implications. Our results show that the Lufeng hominoid has relatively smaller front teeth, smaller M1, and higher SQ than the Yuanmou hominoid, indicating a more folivorous or soft diet, such as leaves and berries, in the former. Tooth wear analysis indicates that both upper and lower molars of the Yuanmou hominoid were more heavily worn than those of the Lufeng hominoid, offering additional support to the findings of tooth size proportion and shearing crest development. We propose that different diets might have characterized the two hominoid populations, the differences possibly related to the environment, behavior pattern, and population structure of the Yuanmou and Lufeng hominoids.

A study on 111 pre-menarcheal (PMG) and 123 menarcheal (MG) Bengalee Hindu girls was undertaken to compare differences in their anthropometric and body composition characteristics. The mean ages of the PMG (12.5 years, SD = 1.2) and MG (12.6, SD = 1.1) subjects were similar. Anthropometric measurements included height, weight, triceps, and calf skinfolds. Two derived indices (body mass index [BMI] and sum of skinfolds) and four body composition measures, percent body fat (PBF), fat mass (FM), fat free mass (FFM), and fat mass index (FMI) were also studied. The mean, 25th, 50th, and 70th percentile values of age at menarche were 12.0, 11.1, 12.0 and 12.9 years, respectively. Results showed that MG had significantly (P < 0.001) higher mean values for all anthropometric and body composition variables. The difference in mean height, weight, and BMI were 10.5 cm, 11.0 kg, and 3.0 kg/m2, respectively. The differences between the two groups in mean PBF, FM, FFM, and FMI were 7.7%, 5.1 kg, 5.9 kg, and 2.0 kg/m2, respectively. The percent difference (after attainment of menarche) in mean FM and mean FFM were 50.5% and 19.9%, respectively. Multivariate regression analyses revealed that attainment of menarcheal status had significant impact on all four measures of body composition (PBF: P < 0.0001; FM: P < 0.0001; FFM: P < 0.0001; FMI: P < 0.001) independent of BMI. Using BMI as a covariate, results of ANOVA revealed that the mean values of PBF, FM, FFM, and FMI were significantly higher among MG compared with the PMG subjects, even after adjustment for BMI. In conclusion, this study clearly indicated that there existed significant differences in body composition, irrespective of BMI, between MG and PMG Bengalee Hindus. It also demonstrated that relative difference in mean FM was significantly greater, compared to the relative difference in mean FFM, after the attainment of menarche.

Primates evolved in the tropical forests of the Late Paleocene or Early Eocene. The cognitive, locomotor and life-history characteristics that define primates evolved under the equable and generally non-seasonal conditions that distinguish such forests. All primates since have carried the biological imprint of this original association with tropical forests. In Asia, the persistence of tropical forests in Indonesia from the Eocene onward has permitted tarsiers to endure and evolve, while other Eocene primates became extinct on their home continents. Following a disastrous decline in tropical forest distribution and primate diversity at the Late Eocene/Oligocene boundary, forests and primates rebounded during the Late Oligocene and Miocene. The dominant Old World primates of most of the Neogene were hominoids, which inhabited large tracts of woodlands and forests throughout Africa and Eurasia. These relatively large, frugivorous animals were quadrupedal, but many were capable of undertaking bridging postures that allowed them to stretch between arboreal substrates. Hominoids reached the apex of their evolutionary success in the Middle Miocene, then declined—as a result of the slow disappearance of their forest homes—in the Late Miocene, especially after 10 Ma. The extirpation of apes at this time can be traced to their inability to live in more seasonal and open habitats. Old World monkeys originated in forest biomes, but became the dominant primate of the late Neogene because of their ability to live in environments ranging from closed, non-seasonal rainforests to open savannahs and alpine meadows. This adaptability can be traced to their slightly faster life histories and their ability to thrive on a wide range of both high- and low-quality foods.

The EH program for maximum-likelihood (ML) frequencies based on an expectation-maximization (EM) algorithm was employed for re-estimation of the β-globin gene cluster haplotype frequency distributions in Japanese, Koreans, and three Colombian Amerinds (Wayuu, Kamsa, and Inga tribes). The distributions estimated by the EH program (estimation 3) were compared with those of our previous studies obtained from individuals who were homozygous at all polymorphic restriction sites or heterozygous at only one site (estimation 1), or ascertained by family linkage studies in Japanese and Koreans (estimation 2). Average haplotype diversities and Nei’s genetic distances based on estimation 3 were also compared with those based on estimations 1 and 2. Haplotypes of all chromosomes examined, which were based on RFLPs (restriction fragment length polymorphisms) at five or seven sites in the β-globin gene cluster, were determined by the EH program as in the case of a family linkage study. The average haplotype diversities based on estimation 3 were much higher than those based on estimations 1 and 2. The present study based on estimation 3 confirmed the close genetic relationships between Japanese and Koreans, and also between Wayuu and Kamsa. Colombian Amerinds showed some African or European characteristics as well as those of Asians.

The class system in place during the Edo (early modern) period in Japan is thought to have included a range of customs that differed between the samurai (ruling class) and commoners. The incidence of caries in the dentition of the samurai was significantly lower than that of commoners. This difference is considered to be due to diet, eating frequency, and tooth care. As to location of the caries, it was found that the incidence of root caries in the samurai was remarkably lower than that in commoners. Root caries does not occur until gingival attachment recedes in an apical direction. The samurai and commoners did not show a significant difference in incidence of periodontal disease, while many samurai dentitions exhibited slick-polished teeth and wedge-shaped defects, which are thought to have been caused by the customary brushing of teeth. Such a custom might have successfully prevented dental caries. Given these findings, we consider that the lower incidence of caries in the samurai, compared with commoners, resulted from the influence of oral hygiene practices that helped to prevent root caries.

Stature and weight growth, and Heath-Carter somatotypes were studied in two groups of Indonesian children of 7 to 15 years of age. One was an urban Yogyakarta group of 340 boys and 373 girls from well-off families, and the other was a rural Bantul group of 222 boys and 243 girls from low-income families. As for general body size, the Yogyakarta children were taller and heavier than the Bantul children in both sexes. During puberty, the Yogyakarta girls were not larger than the Yogyakarta boys, whereas the Bantul girls had greater stature and weight than the Bantul boys. In the somatochart, the Yogyakarta children before puberty were distributed halfway between endomorphy and mesomorphy in both sexes, and thereafter the boys tended toward ectomorphy and the girls toward endomorphy. The somatotype of the Bantul children remained ectomorphic, but differed by sex with a greater mesomorphic element in the boys and a greater endomorphic element in the girls.

We present a new approach called computational shape analysis, which utilizes a Fourier-wavelet representation for characterizing shape features of 2-D forms commonly encountered in a wide set of sub-disciplines within the biological sciences. The morphology of interest consists of the human cranial base (CB) as depicted on lateral cephalometric radiographs. Given a complex irregularly bounded form in Cartesian coordinate space, we first compute elliptical Fourier functions (EFFs) using a set of closely-spaced pseudo-homologous (x, y) points, starting at basion, to create a precise analog of the closed contour. This computed contour is then scaled (size-standardization) and rotated (positional-orientation) to provide for a common normalization. This insures that the representation is invariant with respect to starting point, size and orientation. Utilizing the EFFs, global aspects of the CB can then be extracted. The coordinates derived from the EFF were subsequently submitted to a continuous wavelet transform (CWT). Wavelet coefficients were then computed to identify localized features. The significant advantage of wavelets is that they are able to objectively identify changes in boundary curvature, thereby depicting localized aspects not easily attainable with other methods. Utilizing a sample of 297 Japanese cranial base outlines, statistically-significant differences in sex and archeological age were found. Although archeological age differences were present, they were small and largely random in character, suggesting stability in the CB structures. The presence of sexually dimorphic differences is consistent with earlier data derived from studies of Macaca nemestrina. In the current study, these differences in sexual dimorphism were present for every group starting with the Yayoi period and continuing up to the Modern period. Consequently, one may infer that the pattern of sexual dimorphism documented in the Japanese CB, is a primate pattern with an ancient evolutionary history. Wavelets were particularly useful in objectively identifying this sexual dimorphism. The results demonstrate that the Fourier-wavelet representation is a practical approach for numerically describing and visually depicting both global and localized features.