Doctoral Dissertations

Date of Award

5-2009

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

Major

Anthropology

Major Professor

Lyle W. Konigsberg

Abstract

For almost 100 years, population structure in Nubians has been speculated upon. Initially, most scholars contended that Nubian biological evolution was the product of biological diffusion, or extraregional gene flow, from the different populations they came into contact with. In 1968, Adams put forth a new way to look at the archaeological record. He argued that the archaeological record was reflective of an in situ change, where Nubians evolved culturally without influences from other populations. Later, Carlson and Van Gerven (1979) hypothesized that the same forces that formed the archaeological record were also operating biologically. Since Adams and Carlson and Van Gerven suggested an alternative way to look at Nubian cultural and biological evolution, most research (with the exception of DNA studies) have concurred with their conclusions. The body of research into Nubian biological evolution is vast and incorporates DNA, craniometrics, dental metrics, and dental nonmetrics.However, very little work has been done with cranial discrete traits. In this dissertation, seven questions and their corollaries of Nubian population structure will be examined utilizing cranial discrete traits. Population genetics statistics for quantitative traits have become popular in craniometric data studies. Because of their effectiveness in deciphering subtle aspects of population structure, this dissertation will adapt the continuous population genetics statistics for use with categorical or discrete data. The results of the inquiry into Nubian population structure depict a complex pattern of biological evolution that suggests in situ evolution did not operate alone. Rather, sometimes in situ evolution occurred, while other times biological diffusion influenced their evolution. These interesting results mainly support the DNA evidence, which found evidence of multiple migrations across Nubia (Fox 1997; Krings et al. 1999).Sample size may have affected these results, as several of the samples numbered less than 30. However, small samples should not be ignored because they can contribute much information about past populations. Furthermore, this dissertation successfully modified and applied population genetics statistics to categorical data and can serve as a stepping stone for more sophisticated techniques to be applied to the methodology employed within.

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