Données quantitatives en anthropologie biologique : regards croisés

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Craniodental Affinities of Southeast Asia\u27s Negritos and the Concordance with Their Genetic Affinities

Genetic research into Southeast Asia\u27s negritos has revealed their deep-rooted ancestry, with time depth comparable to that of Southwest Pacific populations. This finding is often interpreted as evidence that negritos, in contrast to other Southeast Asians, can trace much of their ancestry directly back to the early dispersal of Homo sapiens in the order of 70 kya from Africa to Pleistocene New Guinea and Australia. One view on negritos is to lump them and Southwest Pacific peoples into an Australoid race whose geographic distribution had included Southeast Asia prior to the Neolithic incursion of Mongoloid farmers. Studies into Semang osteology have revealed some hints of Southwest Pacific affinities in cranial shape, dental morphology, and dental metrical shape. On the other hand, the Andamanese have been shown to resemble Africans in their craniometrics and South Asians in their dental morphology, while Philippine negritos resemble Mongoloid Southeast Asians in these respects and also in their dental metrics. This study expands the scope of negrito cranial comparisons by including Melayu Malays and additional coverage of South Asians. It highlights the distinction between the Mongoloid-like Philippine negritos and the Andamanese and Semang (and Senoi of Malaya) with their non-Mongoloid associations. It proposes that the early/mid-Holocene dispersal of the B4a1a mitochondrial DNA clade across Borneo, the Philippines, and Taiwan may be important for understanding the distinction between Philippine and other negritos

Les ossements humains de la grotte de Tabon (Palawan, Philippines) : Répartition spatiale et étude d’une collection d’ossements inédite

La renommée de la grotte de Tabon provient de la découverte dans les années 1960 de 3 fossiles d’Homo sapiens datant de la fin du Pléistocène supérieur. En dépit de leur importance, aucune publication n’a jamais décrit le contexte de découverte de ces ossements ni des centaines d’autres restes humains mis au jour. A partir de la redécouverte récente de documents d’archive créés au moment des fouilles et d’une collection de 204 ossements humains dans les réserves du National Museum of the Philippines, nous avons créé un système d’information géographique permettant d’étudier la répartition spatiale de l’ensemble du matériel mis au jour dans les années 1960 et d’en déduire le contexte de découverte de l’ensemble des restes humains. Cette étude a permis de relocaliser la découverte de 2 des 3 fossiles célèbres et de repérer des ossements humains anciens supplémentaires mis au jour en association avec une industrie lithique datée d’environ 20000 BP. Par ailleurs, une sélection de 14 ossements potentiellement anciens (Pléistocène ?) a été réalisée en combinant l’analyse de la répartition spatiale avec l’état de conservation des ossements. S’ils sont confirmés, ces résultats permettraient d’augmenter drastiquement le nombre d’ossements humains pré- Holocène connus en Asie du Sud-Est insulaire

Homo sapiens

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Anthropologie biologique du continent africain : des premiers hominines aux populations actuelles

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Fossil hominins, quadrupedal primates and the origin of human bipedalism: a 3D geometric morphometric analysis of the Primate hamate

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Genomic and cranial phenotype data support multiple modern human dispersals from Africa and a Southern route into Asia.

Despite broad consensus on Africa as the main place of origin for anatomically modern humans, their dispersal pattern out of the continent continues to be intensely debated. In extant human populations, the observation of decreasing genetic and phenotypic diversity at increasing distances from sub-Saharan Africa has been interpreted as evidence for a single dispersal, accompanied by a series of founder effects. In such a scenario, modern human genetic and phenotypic variation was primarily generated through successive population bottlenecks and drift during a rapid worldwide expansion out of Africa in the Late Pleistocene. However, recent genetic studies, as well as accumulating archaeological and paleoanthropological evidence, challenge this parsimonious model. They suggest instead a “southern route” dispersal into Asia as early as the late Middle Pleistocene, followed by a separate dispersal into northern Eurasia. Here we test these competing out-of-Africa scenarios by modeling hypothetical geographical migration routes and assessing their correlation with neutral population differentiation, as measured by genetic polymorphisms and cranial shape variables of modern human populations from Africa and Asia. We show that both lines of evidence support amultiple-dispersals model in which Austro-Melanesian populations are relatively isolated descendants of an early dispersal, whereas other Asian populations are descended from, or highly admixed with, members of a subsequent migration event

Genomic and cranial phenotype data support multiple modern human dispersals from Africa and a southern route into Asia

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