The Balts and the Finns in Historical Perspective: a Multidisciplinary Approach
ACTA MEDICA LITUANICA. 2004. VOLUME 11 No. 3. P. 814 ©8 Lietuvos mokslø akademija, 2004 Gintautas Èesnys, Vaidutis Kuèinskas © Lietuvos mokslø akademijos leidykla, 2004 The Balts and the Finns in historical perspective: a multidisciplinary approach Gintautas Èesnys1, Introduction. Ethnic history of human populations is a too complicated pheno- 2 menon to elucidate it on the basis of several gene frequencies. It is obligatory Vaidutis Kuèinskas to compile all data on molecular genetics and serology, to add new ones, to 1 Department of Anatomy, request services of paleopopulation comparisons, facts of anthropological odon- Histology and Anthropology tology, craniology, and anthropology of the modern population of the area as Faculty of Medicine, well as linguistic and archaeological information. A multidisciplinary approach to Vilnius University, elucidating historical relations between the Balts and the Finns is the goal of the present report. Materials and methods. Approx. 800 blood samples from Lithua- Vilnius, Lithuania nia were examined in order to investigate Lithuanian population according to 2 Department of Human and different genetic markers. Discrete cranial traits of 6,426 skulls from Lithuania Medical Genetics, and adjacent territories as well as 3,734 skulls belonging to the Neolithic, Bronze Faculty of Medicine, Age, 2,000 YBP and 1,000 YBP were investigated. We disposed of data on the Vilnius University, ethnic odontology of 4,993 modern Lithuanians as well as of 1446 skulls dated Vilnius, Lithuania to 2,000 YBP and 1,000 YBP. Results. Two separate clusters consisting conse- quently of four Baltic and two Finnish groups emerged in the dendrogram (Fig. 1). The mesocranial Mesolithic population in Lithuania might be related to the Middle-European kernel of mesocranes.
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