Microevolutionary interpretations from the dentition

• Published in: American Journal of Physical Anthropology
• Main Author: Turner, Christy G.
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Wiley 1969
• Subjects: eskimo*
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/ajpa.1330300313; https://api.wiley.com/onlinelibrary/tdm/v1/articles/10.1002%2Fajpa.1330300313; https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/ajpa.1330300313

Abstract The qualities of the dentition (preservability, hereditability, evolutionary stability, behavioral correlations) make them eminently suited for long‐term evolutionary studies where only natural selection need be considered. Teeth, however, can be just as valuable for short‐term or microevolutionary studies but here consideration of additional processes and conditions is required. Admixture, one such source of microevolution common to many living human groups, often follows contact or discovery by external groups or displacement. Estimates of admixture have been made for several such living hybrid populations by several investigators and all were premised on assumed blood group allele frequencies for the ancestral population of the hybrid group as in this simple model: Time 3 living hybrid groups Time 2 + foreign group Time 1 prehistoric ancestral group For any given living hybrid group, admixture estimates vary widely depending on which other living “unmixed” population is assumed to be most like the ancestral group. This paper presents admixture estimates (for three living North American native groups, Aleuts, Koniag Eskimos, and Pueblo Indians, known by pedigree studies to be admixed to varying degrees) based on allele frequencies calculated from dental phenotypes exhibited in prehistoric skeletal samples known to be ancestral to each of the living hybrid groups. These estimates are compared with estimates based on blood groups. It is uncertain at present whether the potential error resulting from possibly inexact modes of inheritance of these dental traits is less or greater than the potential error due to assuming a living group to be genetically identical with the ancestral group for the trait(s) in question. Widespread acceptance of this procedure utilizing skeletal samples obviously rests with the verification of existing models for dental trait inheritance.