INVESTIGADORES
GONZALEZ paula Natalia
artículos
Título:
Morphological differentiation of aboriginal human populations from Tierra del Fuego (Patagonia): Implications for South American peopling.
Autor/es:
PEREZ S.I.; BERNAL V.; GONZALEZ P.
Revista:
AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PHYSICAL ANTHROPOLOGY
Referencias:
Año: 2007 p. 1067 - 1079
ISSN:
0002-9483
Resumen:
This study aims to integrate the
craniofacial morphological variation of southern South American populations
with the results of mtDNA haplogroup variation, to discuss the South America peopling. Because the causes of
morphological differentiation of Fueguian populations are still a controversial
subject, the comparison with neutral variation could contribute to elucidate
them. Samples of human remains from South America regions were used to analyze the
evolutionary relationships. Several craniofacial traits observed in frontal and
lateral view were analyzed by means of geometric morphometrics techniques, and
the evolutionary relationships based on morphological and molecular data were
established in base to ordination analyses. The results from the facial
skeleton agree with those obtained from mtDNA haplogroup frequencies, with La
Pampa/Chaco samples detached from the Patagonian samples. Hence, the same
mechanism that accounts for the pattern of frequency of haplogroups could
explain the variation found in facial skeleton among the samples. It is
suggested that such geographic pattern of craniofacial and molecular diversity
may reflect the effect of genetic drift that occurred in the small founding
populations isolated by distance or geographic barriers. Conversely, the
results obtained using the traits from the lateral view slightly differ from
the molecular results, showing differences between southernmost Patagonian and
the other samples. Therefore, mechanisms other than genetic drift (e.g., natural
selection) could have acted to shape the pattern observed in some craniofacial
structures present in the lateral view, characterized by the fact that the
southernmost Patagonian samples display the most robust and dolichocephalic
crania.