Digital dermatoglyphics of the Samaritans.
Analysis of digital dermatoglyphics in a sample of 109 Samaritans in Cholon, Israel, suggests in several quantitative measures reduction in variance by comparison with the limited data available from populations elsewhere. Such reduction would be expected in an inbred population. It is not clear whether this is due to Samaritan inbreeding, or is a general feature of Middle-East populations. The Samaritans tend toward the extreme of the Middle-East range of pattern frequencies, but are not grossly different in any of the conventional descriptive dermatoglyphic variables. Principal component analysis suggests slight differences in eigenvalues and differing distributions of the eigenvectors over the digits but, despite some random fluctuation due to sample size, the principal components observed in other populations are also detectable in the Samaritans.