INVESTIGADORES
GONZALEZ-JOSE rolando
artículos
Título:
Detection of a Population Replacement at the Classic-Postclassic Transition in Mexico
Autor/es:
ROLANDO GONZALEZ-JOSÉ; MARTÍNEZ ABADÍAS, NEUS; GONZÁLEZ MARTÍN, ANTONIO; BAUTISTA MARTÍNEZ, JOSEFINA; GÓMEZ VALDÉS, JORGE; MIRSHA QUINTO,; MIQUEL HERNÁNDEZ,
Revista:
PROCEEDINGS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF LONDON. SERIES B: BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES.
Editorial:
ROYAL SOC
Referencias:
Año: 2007 vol. 274 p. 681 - 688
ISSN:
0962-8452
Resumen:
The Mexica Empire reached an outstanding social, economic and politic organization among
Mesoamerican civilizations. Even though archaeology and history provide substantial information about
their past, their biological origin and the demographic consequences of their settlement in the Central
Valley of Mexico remain unsolved. Two main hypotheses compete to explain the Mexica origin: a social
reorganization of the groups already present in the Central Valley after the fall of the Classic centres or a
population replacement of the Mesoamerican groups by migrants from the north and the consequent
setting up of the Mexica society. Here, we show that the main changes in the facial phenotype occur during
the ClassicPostclassic transition, rather than in the rise of the Mexica. Furthermore, Mexica facial
morphology seems to be already present in the early phases of the Postclassic epoch and is not related to the
northern facial pattern. A combination of geometric morphometrics with RelethfordBlangero analyses of
within- versus among-group variation indicates that Postclassic groups are more variable than expected.
This result suggests that intense gene exchange was likely after the fall of the Classic and maybe responsible
for the Postclassic facial phenotype. The source population for the Postclassic groups could be located
somewhere in western Mesoamerica, since North Mexico and Central Mesoamerican Preclassic and
Classic groups are clearly divergent from the Postclassic ones. Similarity among Preclassic and Classic
groups and those from Aridoamerica could be reflecting the ancestral phenotypic pattern characteristic of
the groups that first settled Mesoamerica.