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，几乎所有的人口在基因上都是动态的，其组成随着时间的推移而变化。非洲裔美国人是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。本计画将利用牙齿特徴来追踪这三个族群间的遗传关系。牙齿形态的特征，如铲形门齿和卡拉贝利的性状，是有用的，因为它们是高度遗传的，不重塑在生活中（虽然他们可能会失去磨损或病理），并可以在过去和现在的人口样本中进行比较。这项研究的结果将提供有关人类在生物文化环境中的微进化的新知识。通过分析来自每个生物群体的各种样本，将对时间和空间的遗传变化模式进行观察。此外，通过将本研究的信息与非洲裔美国人的其他混合物分析进行比较，将有可能扩展我们对美国人口历史的了解。最后，本研究的产品将包括三组中每一组的牙齿特征频率表。这些信息目前还不适用于非洲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.