Nasal cavity and maxillary sinuses form variation among modern humans of Asian descent.

Objectives: This study explores variation, covariation, and ecogeographic pattern of the nasal cavity, maxillary sinuses, and external midfacial skeleton across 15 populations of east Asian origin inhabiting the Far East, Siberia, Alaska and Greenland.

Materials And Methods: We have collected linear measurements of the internal nasal cavity, maxillary sinus and external midfacial skeleton as well as volumes and surface areas of three-dimensional models of the cavity. A set of seven climatic variables, mtDNA and Y-chromosome genetic matrices and a matrix of geographic distances were also utilized.

The association between mid-facial morphology and climate in northeast Europe differs from that in north Asia: Implications for understanding the morphology of Late Pleistocene Homo sapiens.

The climate of northeastern Europe is likely to resemble in many ways Late Pleistocene periglacial conditions in Europe, but there have been relatively few studies exploring the association between climate and morphology in the mid-face of modern northeastern European populations. To fill this gap, we sampled 540 male skulls from 22 European and Near Eastern groups, including 314 skulls from 11 populations from northeastern Europe, to test for possible climate-morphology association at the continental scale. Our results found a moderate and highly significant association (R = 0.

Testing the association between human mid-facial morphology and climate using autosomal, mitochondrial, Y chromosomal polymorphisms and cranial non-metrics.

Objectives: To figure out which and how many systems of genetic markers should be used to control for the effects of shared population history in studies examining the association between morphology and climate and to test cranial non-metric traits as an additional source of neutral distances for such studies.

Materials And Methods: We employed three systems of genetic markers (mtDNA, Y-chromosome and autosomal SNPs) and cranial non-metrics to control for potential impact of population history on apparent associations between climatic variables and mid-facial morphology found in a set of seven North Asian and one East Asian populations.

Results: A significant association between morphology and climate remained, independent of which of the four neutral distance matrices were used as a control.