INVESTIGADORES
BERNAL Valeria
artículos
Título:
Evolutionary relationships among prehistoric human populations: An evaluation of facial morphometric data employing molecular based genealogies.
Autor/es:
PEREZ S.I.; BERNAL V.; GONZALEZ P.
Revista:
HUMAN BIOLOGY
Referencias:
Año: 2007 p. 25 - 50
ISSN:
0018-7143
Resumen:
The study of evolutionary relationships among human populationsis fundamental to inferring processes that determine their structure and history.Among the different data types used to infer such relationships, molecular data,particularly nuclear and mitochondrial DNA, are preferred because of theirhigh heritability and the low probability of changes during development.However, although the reliability of relatedness patterns based on other traitsis discussed, except in unusual circumstances most prehistoric populations remainwithin the domain of morphological study. Therefore the primary goal ofthis study is to test the reliability of relatedness patterns constructed on the basisof craniometric data on a regional scale. In particular, we analyze samples frompopulations belonging to the Chaco, Pampa, and Patagonia regions of SouthAmerica for which craniometric and molecular data are available.We comparea strongly supported relatedness pattern based on molecular data with the resultsobtained through landmark-based and semilandmark-based facial data.The matrices based on Euclidean distance for morphometric data and DA distancesfor molecular data were used to perform principal coordinates analysesand to obtain reticulograms. Finally, a principal components analysis of all individualswas performed with morphometric data. The results indicate that ordinationanalyses yield slightly different results depending on themorphometricdata used. However, the reticulograms obtained with both landmark-based andsemilandmark-based data allow the separation of the Chubut samples from theChaco samples, with the Pampa sample in between the others; this pattern iscongruent with molecular-based analyses. As a consequence, our results indicatethat facial morphometric data allow the inference of the structure and historyof the prehistoric populations for the studied region.