Dermatoglyphics in Pilaga Indians of the Gran Chaco (Argentina)

DEMARCHI DA, MARCELLINO AJ

Newsletter of the American Dermatoglyphics Association

American Dermatoglyphics Association

Año: 1995 vol. 14 p. 11 - 27

Digital and palmar dermatoglyphics are reported for 70 Pilagá Indians living in the Argentinian Chaco. Most of the variables studied do not show significant sexual dimorphism and present values within the range found in South American aboriginals. This is true except for the absence of triradius c in males (34.4 %), the highest among Amerindians, and for the mean values of the a‑b and c‑d ridge counts (72.34 ± 9.5, and 62.4 ± 13.1, respectively), also in males, the lowest reported for South Amerindians. Genetic drift and inbreeding are proposed as the possible factors responsible for these extreme values. Intertribal comparisons, carried out with other three native populations of the Argentinian Chaco (Toba, Mataco and Chorote), confirm the suitability of dermatoglyphics to distinguish populations at this level, since both  univariate and multivariate analyses show highly significant differences among the samples. The cluster analysis of the Mahalanobis's D² distances, nevertheless, does not show population relationships consistent neither with the language affiliation nor geographical location of the studied populations.