Ancient remains and the first peopling of the Americas: Reassessing the Hoyo Negro skull.
Am J Phys Anthropol
; 158(3): 514-21, 2015 Nov.
Article
em En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-26174009
OBJECTIVE: A noticeably well-preserved â¼12.500 years-old skeleton from the Hoyo Negro cave, Yucatán, México, was recently reported, along with its archaeological, genetic and skeletal characteristics. Based exclusively on an anatomical description of the skull (HN5/48), Chatters and colleagues stated that this specimen can be assigned to a set of ancient remains that differ from modern Native Americans, the so called "Paleoamericans". Here, we aim to further explore the morphological affinities of this specimen with a set of comparative cranial samples covering ancient and modern periods from Asia and the Americas. METHODS: Images published in the original article were analyzed using geometric morphometrics methods. Shape variables were used to perform Principal Component and Discriminant analysis against the reference samples. RESULTS: Even thought the Principal Component Analysis suggests that the Hoyo Negro skull falls in a subregion of the morphospace occupied by both "Paleoamericans" and some modern Native Americans, the Discriminant analyses suggest greater affinity with a modern Native American sample. DISCUSSION: These results reinforce the idea that the original population that first occupied the New World carried high levels of within-group variation, which we have suggested previously on a synthetic model for the settlement of the Americas. Our results also highlight the importance of developing formal classificatory test before deriving settlement hypothesis purely based on macroscopic descriptions.
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Texto completo:
1
Coleções:
01-internacional
Base de dados:
MEDLINE
Assunto principal:
Crânio
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Indígena Americano ou Nativo do Alasca
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Migração Humana
Tipo de estudo:
Prognostic_studies
Limite:
Female
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Humans
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Male
Idioma:
En
Revista:
Am J Phys Anthropol
Ano de publicação:
2015
Tipo de documento:
Article
País de afiliação:
Argentina
País de publicação:
Estados Unidos