QUALITATIVE AND QUANTITATIVE CHARACTERS O F THE HARD PALATE IN NAMIBIAN - KUNG SAN AND KENYAN NEGROES

Casts of the palate of 138 male and 25 female negroes from Kenya as we ll as those of 110 male !Kung San from Namibia are examined by a modif ied version of Reuer's method with regard to their quantitative and qu alitative characters in order to achieve a better differentiation of t he two racial types in this trait system. Contrary to the relatively w eak sexual dimorphism within the negroe sample, the metrical character s showed marked racial differences, a relevant discriminant function b ased on three measures only is published. The male negroe probands in nearly all quantitative characters surpass the !Kung San men, as far a s the qualitative characters are concerned the results are more hetero genous. Compared with the negroes the !Kung San men show shorter and l ower palates, a mostly concave palatal profile, a significantly more c omplex ridge pattern, a greater height of the ridges and a small, freq uently round Papilla incisiva. This trait combination morphogeneticall y may be determinated to a great extent by the small stature of the Sa n and should be evaluated within the framework of the general pedomorp hy of the San.