A functional-cranial approach to the influence of economic strategy on skull morphology

GONZÁLEZ-JOSÉ, ROLANDO; RAMÍREZ ROZZI, FERNANDO; MARINA SARDI,; MARTÍNEZ ABADÍAS, NEUS; MIQUEL HERNÁNDEZ,; HECTOR PUCCIARELLI,

AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PHYSICAL ANTHROPOLOGY

Año: 2005 vol. 128 p. 757 - 771

0002-9483

Environmental factors are assumed to play an important role in the shaping of craniofacial morphology. Here we propose a statistical approach which can be of utility to estimate the magnitude and localization of a particular non-genetic factor upon the specific functional components of the skull. Our analysis is a combination of previous attempts of apportionment of variance and the application of the Craniofunctional theory. We studied the effect of subsistence strategy on craniofacial functional components among eighteen populations from South America.  Results demonstrate a possible effect of the factor studied in the masticatory component. Even when this effect is not enough to clearly differentiate groups of subsistence strategies, since global craniofacial differentiation at the population level remains greater, the method used here provide interesting clues to localize plastic or adaptive responses to external stimuli.