Intertribal variability of some cephalometric traits in Bedouins of South Sinai and an attempt to visualize it by the method of composite photo portrait

Abstract

Introduction. The article presents the results of the development data on kefalometry of the complex South Sinai anthropological expedition.

The purpose was to study the variability of cephalometric traits in South Sinai Bedouins. Objectives: to identify possible phenotypic differences between the tribes, to assess the position of the Bedouin tribes against the background of the Middle Eastern and North African populations according to literary data; to create male composite photo portraits (CPP) from Bedouin tribes Awlad Said and Gebeliya.

Materials and methods. Cephalometric data from three tribal samples were used: the tribes of Gebeliya, Muzeina and the combined group "other tribes", which includes data on the Awlad Said tribe. To identify intertribal differences, analysis of variance was applied. Literature data on Middle Eastern and North African samples were used for comparative analysis by the method of multidimensional scaling. To create composite photographic portraits (according to F. Galton´s method), an improved program "Face to face" by Syroezhkin-Maurer (by superposition of three points) was used. Full-face and profile individual Bedouins photographic images from the tribes of Gebeliya (N = 21), Awlad Said t (N=21) and Muzeina (N=19, only frontal) were selected for the work.

Results. Statistically significant differences between the Bedouin tribal samples were revealed in such traits as: minimal forehead breadth and mandibular diameter, facial index, height of the lower facial segment and head circumference. Composite full-face and profile photo portraits of Bedouin men of the Awlad Said and Gebeliya tribes, full-face portraits of representatives of the Muzeina tribe were obtained. The results of biometric analysis on the latitudinal traits of the face partly coincide with the analysis of visual information on composite photo portraits. According to the measurement data of the face and head, it was revealed that Bedouin tribes form a compact cluster that differs from neighboring populations.

Conclusion. In the male part of the combined Bedouin sample, for a number of cephalometric features, significant intertribal differences were revealed both by statistical methods and visually (when considering full-face and profile male composite photo portraits). It is shown that endogamous Bedouin tribes of the South Sinai Peninsula are very close to each other by a combination of cephalometric traits, and they significantly different from other neighboring populations. The South Sinai Bedouins form a kind of unique aggregation, whose peculiarity, probably, was formed under the influence of certain socio-historical and environmental factors. © 2023. This work is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 license

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