Anthropologist Christy Turner identified two patterns, Sinodonty and Sundadonty, for East Asia, within the "Mongoloid dental complex"^[1]. The latter is regarded as having a more generalised, Australoid morphology and having a longer ancestry than its offspring, Sinodonty. East Asia is a subregion of Asia that can be defined in either geographical or cultural terms. ... Typical Mongoloid Skull A portrait of the Mongol ruler Genghis Khan; the Mongolians, for which the term Mongoloid was named after, are an example of the prototype Northern Mongoloid. ... Australoid is a broad racial sub-classification of Australasian peoples having generally dark skin and hair which can be curly, straight, or kinky, defined by the anthropologist Carleton S. Coon. ...

Sino and Sunda refer to China and Sundaland, while 'dont' refers to teeth. Sundaland is a biogeographical region of Southeast Asia that comprises the Malay Peninsula and the Indonesian islands of Sumatra, Java, Bali, Borneo, and surrounding smaller islands. ...

He found the Sundadont pattern in the Jōmon of Japan, Taiwanese aborigines, Filipinos, Indonesians, Thais, Borneans, Laotians, and Malaysians, and the Sinodont pattern in the inhabitants of China, Mongolia, eastern Siberia, Native Americans, and the Yayoi. Characters for Jōmon (Cord marks). The Jomon period ) is the time in Japanese pre-history from about 10,000 BC to 300 BC. Most scholars agree that by around 40,000 BC glaciation had connected the Japanese islands with the Asian mainland. ... Total population 2006: 458,000 (CIP 2006) 2004: 454,600 (CIP 2004) Homelands in Taiwan Mountainous terrain running in five ranges from the northern to the southern tip of the island Narrow eastern plains Orchid Island (Lán YÇ”) Languages 14 living Formosan languages. ... Motto: Peace, Independence, Democracy, Unity and Prosperity Anthem: Pheng Xat Lao Capital (and largest city) Vientiane Lao Government Communist State  - President Choummaly Sayasone  - Prime Minister Bouasone Bouphavanh Independence From France   - Date 19 July 1949  Area  - Total 236,800 km² (83rd) 91,429 sq mi   - Water (%) 2% Population  - 2005 estimate 5... It has been suggested that Western Siberia be merged into this article or section. ... Native Americans can refer to Native Americans in the United States, natives of the United States only; equivalent to American Indians in some contexts. ... This article is about a Japanese historical era. ...

Sinodonty is a particular pattern of teeth common among Native Americans and some peoples in Asia, in particular the northern Han Chinese and some Japanese populations. The upper first two incisors are not aligned with the other teeth, but rotated a few degrees inward, and, moreover, they are shovel-shaped; the upper first premolar has one root (whereas the upper first premolar in Caucasians has normally two roots; the lower first molar has three roots (whereas it has two roots in Caucasians). Types of teeth Molars are used for grinding up foods Carnassials are used for slicing food. ... Olmec script These glyphs written in Epi-Olmec script, the earliest examples of writing in the Americas, give a calendar date of 7. ... World map showing the location of Asia. ... Languages Chinese languages Religions Predominantly Taoism, Mahayana Buddhism, traditional Chinese religions, and atheism. ... The premolar teeth or bicuspids are transitional teeth located between the canine and molar teeth. ... Molar 47 (left), molar 46 and premolar 45(right) Molars are the rearmost and most complicated kind of tooth in most mammals. ...

In the 1990s, Turner's dental measurements were frequently mentioned as one of three new tools for studying origins and migrations of human populations. The other two were linguistic methods like Joseph Greenberg's mass comparison of vocabulary or Johanna Nichols's statistical study of language typology and its evolution, and genetic studies pioneered by Cavalli-Sforza. For the band, see 1990s (band). ... Joseph Harold Greenberg (May 28, 1915–May 7, 2001) was a prominent and controversial linguist, known for his work in both language classification and typology. ... Mass lexical comparison or mass comparison is a highly controversial method developed by the well-known linguist Joseph Greenberg to find genetic relationships among languages in the remote past, which he considered unsuitable for the mainstream comparative method, or in situations where there are too many languages to practically apply... Linguist Johanna Nichols is a professor in the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures at University of California, Berkeley. ... Typology is the classification of languages by grammatical features. ... Categories: People stubs | 1922 births | Italian people | Population geneticists ...

Today, the largest number of references on the web to Turner's work are from discussions of the origin of Paleo-Indians and modern Native Americans, including the Kennewick Man controversy. Turner found that the dental remains of both ancient and modern Indians are more similar to each other than they are to dental complexes from other continents, but that the Sinodont patterns of the Paleoindians identify their ancestral homeland as north-east Asia. Some later studies have questioned this and found Sundadont features in some American peoples. Paleo-Indians is an English term used to refer to the ancient peoples of America who were present at the end of the last Ice Age. ... Olmec script These glyphs written in Epi-Olmec script, the earliest examples of writing in the Americas, give a calendar date of 7. ... The reconstructed face of the Kennewick Man. ...

Reference

• The Anthropology of Modern Human Teeth: Dental Morphology and Its Variation in Recent Human Populations by George Richard Scott, Christy G Turner II.; Cambridge University Press 1997; ISBN 0521784530 - Google Book Search
• The Journey of Man by Spencer Wells; Princeton University Press 2002; ISBN 0-691-11532-X

External link

• Sinodonty Diagram
• Affinities of the Paleoindians
• "Tracing Native American Origins"