Ask A Scientist© General Science Archive

  >    name         John
 >    status       other
 >    age          40s

 >    Question -   A Professor mentioned that Native American Indians have
 > finger prints that are common with Mongolian finger print types. Can you
 > group types of prints by Ethnic groups?
 >
 >I thought that there was enough diversity not to have that type of FP
groups.
 >
 >PLEASE NOTE: He implies that the "bulls eye" type print proves some
 >ancestry as Native American AND that type of FP is the same common type in
 >Mongolia.  Thus he says this is another proof of the Bering Land Bridge
 >and that most if not all native American came from the Northern China /
 >Mongolian area.

This is just an observation, not an answer.  I used to lead science labs for
American Indian students;  in one of them, we taught them about
fingerprinting and fingerprint types, and had them make, classify, and
record their fingerprints.  I and the other adults working with me were
surprised at the high incidence of whorls ("bulls-eye" pattern) in the
group.  It was by far the most common class.

Then again, I'm about as WASP as they come, and one of my fingerprints is a
whorl.  So you might be able to say something about the rates of incidence
in the population, but the trait in isolation is not completely diagnostic
of ancestry.

Richard E. Barrans Jr., Ph.D.
Assistant Director
PG Research Foundation, Darien, Illinois

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