Technical note: Comparability of Hrdlička's Catalog of crania data based on measurement landmark definitions

Archival sources of data are critical anthropological resources that inform inferences about human biology and evolutionary history. Craniometric data are one of the most widely available sources of information on human population history because craniometrics were critical in early 20th century debates about race and biological variation. As such, extensive databases of raw craniometric data were published at the same time that the field was working to standardize measurement protocol. Hrdli?ka published between 10 and 16 raw craniometric variables for over 8,000 individuals in a series of seven catalogs throughout his career. With a New World emphasis, Hrdli?ka's data complement those of Howells ( 1973 , 1989 ) and the two databases have been combined in the past. In this note we verify the consistency of Hrdli?ka's measurement protocol throughout the Catalog series and compare these definitions to those used by Howells. We conclude that 12 measurements are comparable throughout the Catalogs, with five of these equivalent to Howells' measurements: maximum cranial breadth (XCB), basion‐bregma height (BBH), maximum bizygomatic breadth (ZYB), nasal breadth (NLB), and breadth of the upper alveolar arch (MAB). Most of Hrdli?ka's measurements are not strictly comparable to those of Howells, thus limiting the utility of combined datasets for multivariate analysis. Four measurements are inconsistently defined by Hrdli?ka and we recommend not using these data: nasal height, orbit breadth, orbit height, and menton‐nasion height. This note promotes Hrdli?ka's tireless efforts at data collection and re‐emphasizes observer error as a legitimate concern in craniometry as the field shifts to morphometric digital data acquisition. Am J Phys Anthropol, 2011. © 2011 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.     

Historical overview of archaeological research in the Aleut region of Alaska

The Aleut region has the longest history of anthropological and archaeological investigations in all of Alaska. Although predating formal anthropological studies, the extensive ethnographic account by the Russian Orthodox priest Ivan Veniaminov in the early 1800s laid a solid foundation for scientific archaeological and anthropological investigations over the next 100 years, including those by William Healy Dall in the 1870s, Waldemar Jochelson from 1909 to 1910, and Ale? Hrdli?ka in the 1930s. Following World War II, research continued, and the evolving political picture in Alaska gave Aleut people increasing influence and control over such efforts.     

Brief communication: preliminary radiocarbon dates from Florida crania in Hrdlička's gulf states catalog

Ale? Hrdli?ka produced a tremendous amount of data in his career, much of which was published in a series of catalogs by the US National Museum. The Gulf States catalog, for example, contains raw craniometric data for over 700 individuals from the state of Florida alone. However, many of these skeletons are poorly sourced by Hrdli?ka, thus limiting their utility in modern bioarchaeological analyses where context is critical. In particular, the age of the skeletal material is often based solely on associated material culture and information on the sites themselves is not presented by Hrdli?ka. To address this impasse we attempted radiocarbon dates for 10 of the largest Florida sites published in the Gulf States catalog. In addition, archival data in the form of unpublished field notes and personal correspondence were accessed to better contextualize the radiocarbon dates and to provide some guidance on the degree of temporal variability at the sites. Eight AMS radiocarbon dates were successful. Archival data was of variable quality per site. In some cases very little is known about the provenience of the specimens. In other cases, however, individual burials could be allocated to specific strata within specific mounds. The relevance of using published raw data is discussed with respect to the Howells and Boas Immigrant datasets and the impact the dissemination of these resources has had on the discipline. Am J Phys Anthropol 145:163–167, 2011. © 2011 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.     

South from Alaska: a pilot aDNA study of genetic history on the Alaska Peninsula and the eastern Aleutians

The Aleutian Islands were colonized, perhaps several times, from the Alaskan mainland. Earlier work documented transitions in the relative frequencies of mtDNA haplogroups over time, but little is known about potential source populations for prehistoric Aleut migrants. As part of a pilot investigation, we sequenced the mtDNA first hypervariable region (HVRI) in samples from two archaeological sites on the Alaska Peninsula (the Hot Springs site near Port Moller, Alaska; and samples from a cluster of sites in the Brooks River area near Katmai National Park and Preserve) and one site from Prince William Sound (Mink Island). The sequences revealed not only the mtDNA haplogroups typically found in both ancient and modern Aleut populations (A2 and D2) but also haplogroups B2 and D1 in the Brooks River samples and haplogroup D3 in one Mink Islander. These preliminary results suggest greater mtDNA diversity in prehistoric populations than previously observed and facilitate reconstruction of migration scenarios from the peninsula into the Aleutian archipelago in the past.     

Origins of Aleuts and the genetic structure of populations of the archipelago: molecular and archaeological perspectives

We summarize the results of a field and laboratory research program (1999-2006) in the Aleutian Islands on the origins of the inhabitants of the archipelago and the genetic structure of these populations. The Aleuts show closest genetic affinity to the contemporary Siberian Eskimos and Chukchi of Chukotka and differ significantly from the populations of Kamchatka (the terminus of the archipelago) and Alaskan Eskimos. Our findings support the hypothesis that the ancestors of the Aleuts crossed Beringia and expanded westerly into the islands approximately 9,000 years ago. The Monmonier algorithm indicates genetic discontinuity between contemporary Kamchatkan populations and western Aleut populations, suggesting that island hopping from Kamchatka into the western Aleutian Islands was highly unlikely. The primary determinant of the distribution of genes throughout the archipelago is geography. The most intimate relationship exists between the genetics (based on mtDNA sequences and intermatch/mismatch distances) and geographic distances (measured in kilometers). However, the Y-chromosome haplogroup frequencies are not significantly correlated with the geography of the Aleutian Islands. The underlying patterns of precontact genetic structure based on Y-chromosome markers of the Aleut populations is obscured because of the gene flow from Russian male colonizers and Scandinavian and English fishermen. We consider alternative theories about the peopling of the Americas from Siberia. In addition, we attempt a synthesis between archaeological and genetic data for the Aleutian Islands.     

Genetic architecture of a small, recently aggregated Aleut population: Bering Island, Russia

The fishing community of Bering Island, located in the Russian Commander Islands off the Kamchatka Peninsula, was originally founded by a small number of Russian soldiers and merchants, along with Aleuts forcibly relocated from the western region of the Aleutian archipelago. The purpose of this study is to characterize the genetic variation of Bering Island inhabitants for autosomal, mitochondrial, and Y-chromosome DNA and classic genetic markers and to investigate the genetic impact of the 19th-century founding and subsequent demographic events on this heterogeneous community. Our results show a loss of diversity among maternal lineages in the Bering Aleut population, with fixation of mtDNA haplogroup D, as revealed by median-joining network analysis and mismatch differences. Conversely, paternal haplotypes exhibit an increase in diversity and the presence of a substantial number of non-Native lineages. Admixture results, based on autosomal STR data, indicate that parental contributions to the mixed Aleut population of Bering are approximately 60% Aleut and 40% Russian. Classic genetic markers show affinities between the Bering Island Aleuts and the other historically founded Aleut communities of St. Paul and St. George in the Pribilof Islands, Alaska. This study demonstrates that the opposing evolutionary forces of genetic drift and gene flow acted on the maternal and paternal lineages, respectively, to shape the genetic structure of the present-day inhabitants of Bering Island.     

Changing patterns of health and disease among the Aleuts

Compared to other regions of North America, there have been relatively few paleopathological studies of arctic populations to date, particularly those aimed at elucidating patterns of health and disease prior to contact, and assessing temporal changes in disease patterns. In the present study, four Aleut skeletal samples representing one pre-contact population from Umnak Island in the eastern Aleutian Islands (N=65), and three late pre-contact/early contact period populations from Umnak, Kagamil, and Shiprock Islands (N=227), were examined macroscopically for indicators of health status. The analysis revealed some evidence of declining health in the late pre-contact/early contact period. Statistical comparisons of the earlier and later samples indicated a significantly higher frequency of cribra orbitalia and cranial infection in the later sample compared to the earlier one. Archaeological, epidemiological, and historical data point to several possible explanations for these findings, including the introduction of new pathogens by Europeans.     

Comparability of multiple data types from the bering strait region: Cranial and dental metrics and nonmetrics,mtDNA, and Y‐chromosome DNA

Different data types have previously been shown to have the same microevolutionary patterns in worldwide data sets. However, peopling of the New World studies have shown a difference in migration paths and timings using multiple types of data, spurring research to understand why this is the case. This study was designed to test the degree of similarity in evolutionary patterns by using cranial and dental metric and nonmetric data, along with Y‐chromosome DNA and mtDNA. The populations used included Inuits from Alaska, Canada, Siberia, Greenland, and the Aleutian Islands. For comparability, the populations used for the cranial and molecular data were from similar geographic regions or had a shared population history. Distance, R and kinship matrices were generated for use in running Mantel tests, PROTEST analyses, and Procrustes analyses. A clear patterning was seen, with the craniometric data being most highly correlated to the mtDNA data and the cranial nonmetric data being most highly correlated with the Y‐chromosome data, while the phenotypic data were also linked. This patterning is suggestive of a possible male or female inheritance, or the correlated data types are affected by the same or similar evolutionary forces. The results of this study indicate cranial traits have some degree of heritability. Moreover, combining data types leads to a richer knowledge of biological affinity. This understanding is important for bioarchaeological contexts, in particular, peopling of the New World studies where focusing on reconciling the results from comparing multiple data types is necessary to move forward. Am J Phys Anthropol 154:334–348, 2014. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Surname distributions and their association with Y-chromosome markers in the Aleutian Islands

We examine surname distribution, origin, and association with Y-chromosome haplogroups in native communities from the Aleutian archipelago. The underlying hypothesis is that surnames and Y-chromosome haplogroups should be associated because both are paternally inherited markers. We used Lasker's coefficient of relationship through isonymy (R(ib) ) to identify the distribution of 143 surnames in the Aleutian Islands. The geographic distribution of surnames was explored both through frequency distribution and through the use of Mantel tests. Multidimensional scaling, chi-square, and Mantel tests were used to examine the relationship between surname and Y-chromosome markers. Overall, we observed that the distribution of surnames in the Aleutian archipelago is culturally driven rather than being one of paternal inheritance. Surnames follow a gradient from east to west, with high frequencies of Russian surnames found in western Aleut communities and high levels of non-Russian surnames found in eastern Aleut communities. A nonsignificant correlation (r = -0.0132; P = 0.436) was found between distance matrices based on haplogroups of the nonrecombining portion of the Y chromosome and surnames, although an association was found between non-Russian surnames and the predominantly non-Russian haplogroups (R1b, I1a, and I).     

The correlation of bone robusticity with the perforation of the coronoid-olecranon septum in the humerus of man

Hrdli?ka ('32) theorized that the tendency towards perforation of the coronoid-olecranon septum of the humerus was phylogenetic in origin, but its appearance also seemed to be negatively correlated with bone size. By determining the correlation between the occurrence of the perforation and certain standard anthropometric measurements, the present study provides a statistical tool to test Hrdli?ka's hypothesis more rigorously. The minimum middle diameter of the humerus is shown to be significantly related to the occurrence of septal perforation, in samples of archeological skeletal material. Using the minimum middle diameter of the humerus as a quantitative assessment of robusticity, more robust samples were found to have smaller mean percentages of perforation.     

Where did all the Aleut men go? Aleut male attrition and related patterns in Aleutian historical demography and social organization

Historical, economic, and political influences on Aleut demography and social organization are considered in relation to an apparent deficit of Aleut males in the early 20th century. Ethnohistoric records detail persistent waves of explorers, fur hunters, missionaries, bureaucrats, and foreign fishermen coming to the Aleutian region for economic exploitation, with some making it their home. The first major wave consisted of Russian and Siberian crews in pursuit of sea otters and fur seals. These entrepreneurs moved Aleut men to hunting grounds and replaced a large portion of them in the villages. The second wave consisted of Scandinavian and other European immigrants who followed cod, halibut, and herring fisheries and who married into eastern Aleut villages. These movements resulted in two genealogical deficits of Aleut men with concomitant shifts in social organization and economic emphases that contribute to the modern diversity of Aleut society. Aleut evacuation during World War II exacerbated these sex imbalances in the villages of the western Aleutian and Pribilof islands.     

Anthropometric variation among Bering Sea natives

Recent research indicates that anthropometrics can be used to study microevolutionary forces acting on humans. We examine the use of morphological traits in reconstructing the population history of Aleuts and Eskimos of the Bering Sea. From 1979 to 1981, W. S. Laughlin measured a sample of St. Lawrence Island Eskimos and Pribilof Island Aleuts. These samples included adult participants from St. George and St. Paul in the Pribilof Islands and from Gambell and Savoonga on St. Lawrence Island. The Relethford-Blangero method was used to examine the phylogenetic relationship between Aleuts and Eskimos. Anthropometric measurements for Native North Americans (measured by Boas and a team of trained anthropometrists in 1890-1904) and Native Mesoamericans (compiled from the literature for 1898-1952) were used for comparison. A principal components analysis of means for measurements and a neighbor-joining tree were constructed using Euclidean distances. All these tests revealed the same strong relationship among the focus populations. The R matrix from the Relethford-Blangero method clusters Aleuts and Eskimos separately and accounts for 97.3% of the variation in the data. Phenotypic variation within the population is minimal and therefore minimum F(ST) values are low. Genetic distances were compared to a Euclidean distance matrix of anthropometric measurements using a Mantel test and gave a high but not significant correlation. Our results provide evidence of a close phylogenetic relationship between Aleut and Eskimo populations in the Bering Sea. However, it is apparent that history has affected the relationship among the populations. Despite previous findings of higher European admixture in Gambell (based on blood group markers) than in Savoonga, Savoonga has greater within-group variation in anthropometric measurements. Anthropometrics reveal a close relationship between Gambell and St. Paul as a result of European admixture. The St. George population was the most divergent of the populations, indicating that it diverged from the Eskimos and St. Paul because of the compounding effects of genetic drift and limited European gene flow. These findings are in agreement with previous anthropometric and genetic studies of the Aleut and Eskimo populations and support the utility of anthropometrics in inferring population history and structure.     

Origins of linguistic diversity in the Aleutian Islands

The Aleut language, currently spoken along the Aleutian chain and the Pribilof and Commander islands, is the only language in its branch of the Eskimo-Aleut language family, and traditional methods of linguistic reconstruction have neither satisfactorily explained its relationship with languages on the Asian continent nor its development from Proto-Eskimo-Aleut. Linguistic reconstruction has always been important in understanding the prehistory and history of the Aleuts, and new approaches in comparative linguistics, more comprehensive information on typological features of neighboring languages, and continuing language documentation allow us to propose a rich and continuous history of contact with various groups of people. I evaluate evidence that the Aleut language may have been shaped by contact with neighbors in Asia and Alaska, eventually giving rise to its differentiation from the Eskimo languages. I look at dialect differentiation along the Aleutian chain and what this differentiation reveals about the migration trends of the Aleut along the chain. I look at the colonial expansion of the Aleut-speaking area and resulting additional varieties of Aleut in the historical period. Finally, I review the effects of the Russian and American colonial periods on the Aleut language and the severe endangerment that the language faces today as a result. I conclude that there is evidence of possible Aleut contact with both neighboring peoples; however, much of this evidence has not yet been subjected to systematic comparative reconstructions. Linguistic evidence supports theories of at least two westward expansions of Aleuts along the island chain, but it is not yet clear what motivated the dialect differentiations. Finally, I offer some thoughts on directions for future dialect studies and the continuing documentation of Aleut.     

Early Holocene human skeletal remains from Santana do Riacho,Brazil: implications for the settlement of the New World

In this study we compare the cranial morphology of several late Paleoindian skeletons uncovered at Santana do Riacho, Central Brazil, with worldwide human cranial variation. Mahalanobis Distance and Principal Component Analysis are used to explore the extra-continental morphological affinities of the Brazilian Paleoindian sample. Santana do Riacho is a late Paleoindian burial site where approximately 40 individuals were recovered in varying states of preservation. The site is located at Lagoa Santa/Serra do Cipó, State of Minas Gerais. The first human activities in this rockshelter date back to the terminal Pleistocene, but the burials are bracketed between circa 8200 and 9500BP. The collection contains only six skulls well-enough preserved to be measured. The Santana do Riacho late Paleoindians present a cranial morphology characterized by long and narrow neurocrania, low and narrow faces, with low nasal apertures and orbits. The multivariate analyses show that they exhibit strong morphological affinities with present day Australians and Africans, showing no resemblance to recent Northern Asians and Native Americans. These findings confirm our long held opinion that the settlement of the Americas was more complicated in terms of biological input than has been widely assumed. The working hypothesis is that two very distinct populations entered the New World by the end of the Pleistocene, and that the transition between the cranial morphology of the Paleoindians and the morphology of later Native Americans, which occurred around 8-9ka, was abrupt. This, in our opinion, is a more parsimonious explanation for the diversity detected than a long, local microevolutionary process mediated by selection and drift. The similarities of the first South Americans with sub-Saharan Africans may result from the fact that the non-Mongoloid Southeast Asian ancestral population came, ultimately, from Africa, with no major modification in the original cranial bau plan of the first modern humans.     

The mixed cell agglutination method for typing mummified human tissue

A, B, and O(H) antigens have been demonstrated in mummified epidermal tissue by means of the mixed agglutination method. This mixed erythrocyte-epidermal cell agglutination is possible since both cell types possess a common antigen. Tissue samples derived from prehistoric aboriginal populations of the Aleutian Islands, the Southwestern United States and Peru and Chile were subjected to testing using this technique. The continuity in ABO type between these aboriginal specimens and those of living populations is remarkable. A, B, AB and O(H) types were found to be represented in the 30 Aleut specimens while the Southwestern United States materials revealed just antigens A and O. Only the O antigen was recorded from specimens from Peru and Chile.     

Brief communication: human cranial variation fits iterative founder effect model with African origin

Recent studies comparing craniometric and neutral genetic affinity matrices have concluded that, on average, human cranial variation fits a model of neutral expectation. While human craniometric and genetic data fit a model of isolation by geographic distance, it is not yet clear whether this is due to geographically mediated gene flow or human dispersal events. Recently, human genetic data have been shown to fit an iterative founder effect model of dispersal with an African origin, in line with the out-of-Africa replacement model for modern human origins, and Manica et al. (Nature 448 (2007) 346-349) have demonstrated that human craniometric data also fit this model. However, in contrast with the neutral model of cranial evolution suggested by previous studies, Manica et al. (2007) made the a priori assumption that cranial form has been subject to climatically driven natural selection and therefore correct for climate prior to conducting their analyses. Here we employ a modified theoretical and methodological approach to test whether human cranial variability fits the iterative founder effect model. In contrast with Manica et al. (2007) we employ size-adjusted craniometric variables, since climatic factors such as temperature have been shown to correlate with aspects of cranial size. Despite these differences, we obtain similar results to those of Manica et al. (2007), with up to 26% of global within-population craniometric variation being explained by geographic distance from sub-Saharan Africa. Comparative analyses using non-African origins do not yield significant results. The implications of these results are discussed in the light of the modern human origins debate.     

Brief communication: The human humerus from the Broken Hill Mine, Kabwe, Zambia

The distal half of a right human humerus (E.898), recovered ex situ in 1925 by Hrdli?ka at the Broken Hill Mine, Kabwe, Zambia, has figured prominently in assessments of Middle Pleistocene Homo postcranial variation and of the phylogenetic polarity and functional anatomy of Pleistocene Homo upper limb morphology. Reassessment of distal humeral features that distinguish modern human and some archaic Homo humeri, especially relative olecranon breadth and medial and lateral pillar thicknesses, confirm previous studies placing it morphologically close to recent humans, as well as possibly to Early Pleistocene Homo. However, it completely lacks stratigraphic context, and there is faunal and archeological evidence for human activity at Broken Hill from the Middle Pleistocene to the Holocene. Given its uncertain geological age and modern human morphology, the Broken Hill E.898 humerus should not be used in analyses of Pleistocene humans until it is securely dated. Am J Phys Anthropol 149:312–317, 2012. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Physical anthropology in 1918 and the founding of the U.S. journal

In 1918, the first issue of the American Journal of Physical Anthropology was prepared and distributed by Aleš Hrdlička, the Curator of Physical Anthropology at the Smithsonian Institution. This was a singular act, both in the general and specific sense. It was the first journal of physical anthropology published in the United States, and it was a sole effort by Hrdlička, who was committed to promoting and recognizing physical anthropology as a new science in America. On this 100th anniversary of the founding of the journal, Hrdlička's efforts were successful: physical/biological anthropology is a strong and timely discipline that represents a major area of scientific research today.