Age changes in shape and morphology in Arikara subadult ilia

This study examines the growth of the ilium in an American Indian skeletal series. This study was done because of the lack of previous study in this area using statistical interpretation of the changes. The samples consists of subadults from four Arikara cemeteries found in northern South Dakota; two of the samples are separate occupations of the same site. An unknown age and sex sample was used because of its availability and because of the unavailability of known subadult skeletal samples. Eight measurements were taken on each ilium and two non-metric traits recorded. Maximum femur lengths, gathered in a previous study, were then matched with their corresponding ilia. Femur length was used as an indication of biological age and used to hold age changes constant. Logrithmic transformation of the raw data was performed to eliminate non-linear trends in the femur length to iliac relationships

Dermatoglyphic variation among Sub-Saharan Africans: $ba multivariate analysis of population structure

It has been previously observed that population structure analysis using dermatoglyphics tends to follow similar patterns formed by other biological features (serology, craniometric, anthropometrics), and reflect relevant linguistic or geographical distributions. But the level of these correlations has not been consistantly identified, causing some debate over the validity of dermatoglyphics as a form of study in human populations. A systematic analysis of a series of populations needs to be made to evaluate how well dermatoglyphic variables generate significant genetic, cultural and geographical relationships dermatoglyphic affinities. between groups, and which features best present these particular population affinities. Using multivariate statistical methods, the five most widely employed dermatoglyphic techniques are tested for their ability to present understandable population structure. Complete 20 finger ridge-counts, 10 finger ridge-counts, palmar interdigital ridge-counts, finger pattern frequencies and palmar pattern frequencies, following standard methods, were obtained for 50 African tribal populations