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Regional isolation in the Balkan region: An analysis of craniofacial variation
Author(s) -
Ross Ann H.
Publication year - 2004
Publication title -
american journal of physical anthropology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.146
H-Index - 119
eISSN - 1096-8644
pISSN - 0002-9483
DOI - 10.1002/ajpa.10339
Subject(s) - variation (astronomy) , craniofacial , greeks , demography , geography , evolutionary biology , biology , history , genetics , physics , ancient history , sociology , astrophysics
Biological variation is investigated among contemporary Croatians, Bosnians, American whites, and other multitemporal Balkan populations (World War II Croatians, Macedonians, and Greeks) via multivariate statistics and distance measures of the craniofacial complex. This study demonstrates that there is considerable variation among groups of European ancestry. Bosnians and Croatians who are thought to be relatively homogenous and historically to originate from the same Slav ancestry show local variations. While environmental plasticity has been used to explain cranial changes among human groups, it does not adequately explain the variation observed between Bosnians and Croatians. It is an oversimplification to exclusively attribute the vast range of variability observed among local as well as geographic populations to environmental adaptations. Am J Phys Anthropol, 2003. © 2003 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.