Sinodonty and Sundadonty

Sinodonty and Sundadonty are two patterns of features widely found in the dentitions of different populations in East Asia. These two patterns were identified by anthropologist Christy G. Turner II as being within the greater "Mongoloid dental complex". Sundadonty is regarded as having a more generalised, Australoid morphology and having a longer ancestry than its offspring, Sinodonty.

The combining forms Sino- and Sunda- refer to China and Sundaland, respectively, while -dont refers to teeth.

"In contrast to the broad Mongoloid Dental Complex," Turner defined the Sinodont and Sundadont dental complexes. Hanihara defined the Mongoloid Dental Complex in 1966. In 1984, Turner separated the Mongoloid Dental Complex into the Sinodont and Sundadont dental complexes.

Turner found the Sundadont pattern in the skeletal remains of Jōmon people of Japan, and in living populations of Taiwanese aborigines, Filipinos, Indonesians, Borneans, and Malaysians.

By contrast, he found the Sinodont pattern in the Han Chinese, in the inhabitants of Mongolia and eastern Siberia, in the Native Americans, and in the Yayoi people of Japan.

Sinodonty is a particular pattern of teeth characterized by the following features:

In the 1990s, Turner's dental morphological traits were frequently mentioned as one of three new tools for studying origins and migrations of human populations. The other two were linguistic methods such as Joseph Greenberg's mass comparison of vocabulary or Johanna Nichols's statistical study of language typology and its evolution, and genetic studies pioneered by Cavalli-Sforza.

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