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Climate and the evolution of skull metrics in man
Author(s) -
GuglielminoMatessi C. R.,
Gluckman P.,
CavalliSforza L. L.
Publication year - 1979
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.1330500407
Subject(s) - anthropometry , skull , demography , human skull , geography , evolutionary biology , phylogenetic tree , biology , gene , paleontology , archaeology , sociology , genetics
Two types of data, anthropometric and gene frequencies, may be used to reconstruct human evolution. Previous research, reconstructing the history of racial differentiation on the basis of gene frequencies, indicated that the major separation between human groups was that between Africans and Europeans on one side and peoples from Australia, East Asia and Americas on the other. A similar attempt by Howells ('73b), based on skull measurements in 17 ancient populations, in agreement with earlier anthropometric data, showed the major separation to be between Africans and Australians on one side and Europeans, Asians and Americans on the other. Climate could be a contributing factor to the observed differences in skull and anthropometric measurements. Howells' data showed high correlations with several climatic indicators. Carrying out the phylogenetic analysis after elimination by linear regression of the effects of climate has resolved to a great extent the discrepancy between an‐thropometric and gene frequency data.