LAUSR

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.