Ancient Chinese faces

[Goujian]

Qin dynasty


Han dynasty

Red and Green denote major phenotypes

Han mounted soldiers of northern nomadic heritage


Han soldiers


The more nomadic types have noticeable cheekbones along with thinner, more slanted eyes and a wider face. Somewhere during the Qin and Han dynasties there was an influx of northern nomadic genes into the population,

[HillY35]

The mounted soldiers remind me, as far as the "45 degree angle" of their eyes, of Eskimos.

[Goujian]

Reconstructions of ancient/medieval faces







Ancient faces vs modern faces






China has a diverse population today, since there were many major migrations, with four important ones, the first three labeled as 衣冠南渡 Yi Guan Nandu, literally clothes and headdresses moving south. As a result, you can find northern phenotypes in southern China and southern phenotypes in northern China. This is partially why geographical and administrative borders within China are not a good indicator of phenotype.

1) North to south migration from 4th to 5th centuries CE. For instance, most of the migrants in the lower Yangtze (what is now Shanghai, southern Jiangsu and northern Zhejiang) for instance hailed from what is now Shandong, coastal Hebei and northern Jiangsu along with Central Plains and settled in the area south of the Huai river (central Jiangsu and Anhui) and the lower Yangtze. There were also migrations to central-southern China such as Hubei, Hunan and Jiangxi.
2) North to south migration from 8th to 9th centuries CE. Chinese of the Central Plains moved and settled in the Sichuan Basin and what is now Jiangxi, Hubei and Hunan provinces. Though the rest I'm not too clear on, there was also migration to southern China such as Fujian and Guangdong.
3) North to south migration from 11th century and 12th century CE. Like the previous migrations, except most of the north to south migration was from northern China to the lower Yangtze.
4) South to north migration from 14th centuries to 17th centuries CE. Most of the migrants were from Jiangxi and Hubei province and settled in Henan and Shaanxi provinces, some of whom settled further north to Hebei, Shandong and Shanxi provinces.



There were also smaller scale migrations but they were secondary migrations, such as south to north migration of southern Fujianese to southeastern Zhejiang province.

[StonyArabia]

They don't look much different from modern Chinese.

[Goujian]

These are reconstructed faces of how ancient Chinese looked like 6,000 years ago.


Ancient Central Plain people


Ancient North Chinese, largely associated with the Di and Rong peoples north and west of the Central Plains


Ancient Hun/Mongol people

[Goujian]

Ancient Chinese population clusters:

Ancient Northwestern Chinese - same cluster as ancient Huns/Xiongnu, modern Chinese from Gansu and Qinghai provinces
Ancient Northern Chinese - same as modern day Northern, Central and Eastern Chinese
Ancient Central Plain Chinese - same as modern day deep southern Chinese
Ancient Southern Chinese - same as modern Southeast Asians (sans Northern Vietnam)

Outliers are Shang elites from Anyang who have higher east Siberian Tungid admixture, they have Northeastern Chinese-like craniofacial measurements.

Northern Chinese have higher levels of mtDNA haplogroups M and D, northwestern Chinese having highest amounts of all. While deep southern Chinese have highest levels of mtDNA haplogroup R (including B and F).

[Kamal900]

Today i went to a fancy restaurant with my brothers and friends at china town in Dubai(i brought some Chinese friends too), and the Chinese people there look no different from their ancient ancestors. There was one Filipino waiter, who is the only one working in the restaurant, and he stick out in comparison to the Chinese people there(yeah, we had a lot of fun today too).

[Séamus]

North Chinese are robust as fuck. Athleticism is obviously prevalent. Mesomorph tendencies.

[Vigilance]

Alot of these faces look heavily Tungid