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© Kamla-Raj 2012 Anthropologist 14(2): 185-191 (2012) Diversity of Finger Patterns in Iranian Populations M. Sharif Kamali and Alireza Hassanzadeh Anthropology Research Centre, Iranian Cultural, Handicrafts and Tourism Organization (ICHTO), Tehran, Iran E-mail: [email protected] [email protected] KEYWORDS Dermatoglyphics, Finger Patterns, Distance analysis, Dendrograms, Iran ABSTRACT Six Iranian populations have been analyzed for finger patterns, utilizing bilateral prints of 720 individuals. Bimanual and sex differences were frequently insignificant and non-significant. Interpopulational variation showed significant hetererogeneity among the populations studied. Distance analysis and constructed dendrograms, based on these six populations and other thirteen Iranian populations, provided separation between the populations for finger patterns, and the dendrograms were only in agreement with the ethnohistoric records of the populations studied for combined sexes but not for males or females. Therefore, finger patterns are good measures of population distance and the relationships of populations one to another. INTRODUCTION main human ethnic groups and each of them has its own range of variation for these features. Hoff Anthropological dermatoglyphics has et al. (1981) found that the C-line terminations attracted many scholars in anthropology and show better results in interpopulational compari- population genetics for the past 70 years. The sons affinities compared to than the D-line termi- results are mainly descriptive dermatoglyphics nations among the native American populations. of single populations. Of course, there are also Balgir (1984) in studying C- and D-lines termina- studies in different populations and populations tions of the Sikligars of Chandigarh India, found comparisons. A bibliography of dermatoglyph- their common population origin with Rajputs and ics can be found in Mavalwala (1977) and a com- Hindu Gujjars. Jose Martin (1991) studied palmar prehensive review of anthropological der- C-line polymorphism in Spain and Sanna and matoglyphics has been compiled by Meier (1980). Floris (1995) in studying Sardinian linguistic Plato et al. (1975) and Plato (1976) also showed groups, showed that the terminations of main variations of different dermatoglyphic features lines terminations could be used as an indicator in major human ethnic groups and finally, Meier of relationships among linguistic groups. (1991) has discussed in detail, the application of The aim of the present study is 1) to study dermatoglyphics to anthropologic populations. six Iranian populations for finger patterns, 2) to However, the results of dermatoglyphic stu- report bimanual and sex differences of these traits dies in human populations showed that popu- and, 3) to find out that whether or not the finger lations vary in their dermatoglyphic features but patterns are is a good measures for understand- little is known about the relationships of these ing of population distances. variations with the past histories and ethnic rela- tionships of the populations studied. It seems ETHNOGRAPHIC BACKGROUND that some dermatoglyphic features are better than others as measures of population distances Iran has been settled by many diverse peo- (Kamali et al. 1991). ples during the past 25 centuries, and all of these Among several aspects of qualitative der- peoples have in varying degree contributed to matoglyphics, terminations of the C- and D-lines the Iranian gene pool (Field 1939; Ghirshman have been used to show the existence of signifi- 1978; Kamali and Mavalwala 1990). However, cant variations among between populations most of the Iranian populations are of Indo-Eu- (Plato 1976). Plato et al. (1975) and Plato (1976) in ropean origin and there are African origin popu- reviewing the worldwide distribution of qualita- lations in the south, East Asian origin in the north- tive dermatoglyphics, have shown that the C- east and Dravidian mixture in the south-east and D- lines terminations are different among the (Baluchistan). 186 M. SHARIF KAMALI AND ALIREZA HASSANZADEH The samples of this study were drawn from the present study have been already described the six following populations. Care has been taken (Kamali and Mavalwala 1990; Kamali et al. 1990, to select the populations which are mostly en- 1991). dogamous, have non-assortative matings and if there was any kind of suspected admixture, the MATERIALS AND METHODS samples were omitted. Abyaneh is a population of Indo-European Inked bilateral palm prints of 720 individuals origins living in Abyaneh village in Province of representing six populations of Iran were col- Esfahan in central west of Iran. The village is lected and analyzed for finger patterns. located at the margins of desert on the moun- The names of the populations and the sizes tainous area with the history of about 1500 years. of the samples are given in Table 1, and the geo- They are Indo-Europeans with the stable popu- graphic locations of the populations are shown lation of 250. Abyaneh is losing population year in Figure 1. by year because of migration. Many persons im- Finger patterns are classified as whorl, ulnar migrate to bigger cities to work and often to marry. loop, radial loop, tented arch and arch (Cummins The people who live permanently in the village, and Midlo 1961). are endogamous. Interpopulational variation has been examined Bandar Gaz population lives in Bandar Gaz, by analysis of variance for categorical data Southeast Caspian Sea coastal area. It seems that (CATANOVA), distance analysis and the construc- these peoples are Indo-Europeans but might have tion of dendrograms. CATANOVA is an analysis of some admixture with Turkmans who live nearby. variance for a one-way table when the response Actually they belong to the Mazandarani popu- variable is categorical. Test statistics of lations who seems to have originated from old CATANOVA follow a Chi-square distribution. To Iranians (Indo-Europeans). The samples were determine whether the populations studied showed collected from non-relatives of and Bandar Gaz significant differences, the categorical variance origin peoples. component analysis was computed after Light and Amlash Gilaks are also of Indo-European ori- Margolin (1971). Distance analysis was calculated gins. The natives of Gilan Province are called for phenotypic frequencies of the finger patterns Gilaks. Actually we have samples of three Gilak using Sanghvi’s G2 (Sanghvi 1953: Balakrishnan populations. One sample from urban area (Rasht), and Sanghvi 1968) with the formula: the others from village and town and the third one Table 1: Iranian populations studied and their from mountainous areas. Even though these three sample sizes populations have more or less same origins, their gene pools have changed through the time. The Populations Abbreviations Sample sizes used Rasht Gilaks who live in a big city, star-ted to Males Females change earlier and the Masouleh who live in a Abyaneh AH 5 2 3 4 village in the mountainous area, have the least Bandar Gaz BG 8 3 6 0 changes. However, we collected data from the Gilak Amlash GA 6 7 4 6 people who have Gilak origins and omitted the Gilak Rasht GR 7 9 5 3 Konar Sandal KS 4 5 4 9 mixed ones. Masouleh MA 7 8 7 3 Konar Sandal population live in Kerman Prov- Total 405 315 ince, South Iran. Actually the population has been Other Iranians: formed from the Baluch immigrants who were liv- Arabs AB 8 1 102 ing in the area as agricultural workers who bought Armenians AR 132 140 Assyrians AS 111 125 the lands after Iranian Land Reform of 1961 and Azaris AZ 208 124 formed the current population. The size of popu- Baluchis BA 134 9 7 lation is nearly 1000. Many males have migrated Guklan Turkmans GT 9 1 100 to the big cities for work. Therefore, the sex ratio Kurds KU 120 8 1 Lors LO 9 1 7 0 is below 100. However, the population is endoga- South Iranians SI 184 159 mous with the features of Baluchi and Dravidian Taleshes TA 8 2 133 admixture. Teke Turkmans TT 154 8 0 The ethnographic records of the other thir- Yomut Turkmans YT 146 9 6 teen Iranian populations who were compared with Zoroastrians ZO 162 155 FINGER PATTERNS IN IRAN 187 T Azerbaijan u r Turkmenistan k Caspain Sea e y MA GA GR BG TEHRAN Iraq A AH F G A N I IRAN S T A N KS P a k i s 100miles t Persian Gulf a n Oman sea Fig. 1. Geographic locations of the populations studied. The abbreviations used for the populations are as in Table 1 Where P1j and P2j are the phenotypic frequen- 55.8% (Massouleh: MA) for combined fingers. cies of a given finger pattern in the compared Among females, ulnar loops show the high- populations 1 and 2 and sj is the number of con- est frequencies among five out of six popula- sidered modal type. The extraction of square root tions studied for both the hands with the range is not obligatory. Its purpose is to reduce the of 48.8% (Amlash Gilaks: GA) to 57.4 (Masouleh: scale. MA) for combined hands. Whorls show the high- For testing interpopulational affinities with est frequencies among right haqnds of Abyaneh these distance matrices, we constructed dendro- (AH). grams for cluster analysis using single linkage Tented arches show the lowest frequencies clustering technique, using MVSP software. for all of the populations studied with the range of 1.8% (Konar Sandal: KS) to 7.5% (Amlash 1 sj (P1j-P2j)2 G2 = x100 Gilaks: GA) for males and from 0.5% (Abyaneh: sj j=1 (P1j-P2j)/2 AH) to 10.8% (Masouleh: MA) for females. As is evident in Table 2, even though bimanual RESULTS differences exist for the finger patterns among the populations studied, the observed differences The percent frequencies of finger patterns of achieve statistical significance among three male both palms combined and right and left palms and three female populations studied (Table 3).

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