Abstract

Abstract The Dahekou cemetery in southern Shanxi Province is an important archaeological site dating to the Western Zhou period (1046 BC-771 BC). Based on the inscriptions on funerary artefacts, the cemetery is believed to belong to a local enfeoffed state named Ba (霸), which was not mentioned in historical records. Previous archaeological studies failed to reach any definite conclusion on the origin and flow direction of the Dahekou people, which was one of the research questions of concern, waiting to be interpreted. In this paper, we assessed the biological affinity between the Dahekou people and the populations that lived before and after them in the surrounding area by conducting a cluster analysis of their craniometric data. The results show that the earlier Youyao group, the later Shangma and Taosibei groups have the closest affinity to the Dahekou population. This paper thus argues that the Dahekou people were most likely descendants of a branch of a nomadic civilization named Di (狄) who came from north-central Shanxi. After the demise of the Ba state, the Dahekou people were incorporated into the people of the Jin (晋) state represented by two nearby cemeteries. This study also shows that craniometry could assist in the addressing of some research questions which failed to be answered by historical records, like where the people of a newly enfeoffed state of a Bronze Age dynasty came from.