Doctoral Dissertation Research: Biological Distance and the African American Dentition

当两个人类群体接触时，基因流动就会发生。因此，几乎所有的人类群体都是遗传动态的，随着时间的推移，他们的组成会发生变化。非洲裔美国人是另外两个可识别的生物群体之间基因流动的结果：西非人和欧洲血统的美国人。该项目将利用牙齿特征来追踪这三个群体之间的遗传关系。牙齿形态的特征，如铲形门牙和卡拉贝利的特征，对于这一目的是有用的，因为它们具有高度的遗传性，在生活中不会重塑(尽管它们可能会因磨损或病理而丢失)，并且可以在过去和现在的种群样本中进行平等的比较。这项研究的结果将为人类在生物文化背景下的微进化提供新的知识。通过分析每个生物组的各种样本，将观察到基因在时间和空间上的变化模式。此外，通过将这项研究的信息与其他对非裔美国人混血的分析进行比较，将有可能扩大我们对美国人口历史的了解。最后，这项研究的产品将包括三组中每一组的牙齿特征频率表。这一信息目前不适用于非裔美国人和欧洲裔美国人。

Gene flow occurs whenever two human populations come in contact. Thus, virtually all human populations are genetically dynamic, changing in their composition over time. The African-American population is the result of gene flow between two other identifiable biological groups: West Africans and American of European descent. This project will utilize dental characteristics to trace genetic relationship among these three groups. Characteristics of dental morphology, such as shovel-shaped incisors and Carabelli's trait, are useful for this purpose because they are highly heritable, do not remodel during life (although they can be lost to wear or pathology), and can be compared equally among samples from past and present populations. The results of this research will provide new knowledge about human microevolution in a biocultural setting. By analyzing a variety of samples from each biological group, observations will be made on patterns of genetic change through time and space. Additionally, by comparing the information from this study to other analyses of admixture in African Americans it will be possible to extend our knowledge of the history of the American population. Finally, the product of this study will include tables of dental trait frequencies in each of the three groups. This information is not currently available for African Americans and Americans of European descent.