Biodistance Analysis of North and South American Populations

This project was awarded third place in "History of People and Art" at the 2018 Richard J. And Martha D. Denman Undergraduate Research ForumArchaeological evidence suggests that humans were already present in both North and South America by 12.5-11.5 kyr BP. However, the number of waves and routes from Asia are much debated, and the early (~12 kya) settlement in Brazil bring into question previous ideas about human migration into the region. Given the debate surrounding this topic, it is important to understand the genetic diversity between North and South Americans. In this project, I used biodistance analysis to explore the cranial morphological variation observed in the New World, and how this variation is structured between the two American continents. Human craniometrics data from previous studies (Hanihara, 1996; Herrera, et al., 2017; Hubbe, et al., 2014; Hubbe, et al., 2015; Neves et al., 2013) was used to create a detailed understanding of the biological variation of the region. These data cover populations in North America (USA and Mexico) and South America (Brazil, Colombia, and Peru), as well as comparative series from Asia and Australo- Melanesia. Results show that Atlantic South America exhibits the highest Fst value (0.15) out of all groups analyzed. Whereas the Andean (0.068), North Americans (0.07), and East Asian (0.077) populations have the lowest Fst values. These findings reveal high genetic diversity of South American groups and calls into question the validity of grouping North and South Americans in genetic studies.This project was funded by a scholarship from the Ohio State University College of Arts and Sciences Honors undergraduate Research Scholarship.No embargoAcademic Major: Anthropolog