Doctoral Dissertation Improvement: Human skeletal variation in the prehistoric New World: geographic, temporal and climatic effects

在国家科学基金会的支持下，本杰明·奥尔巴赫先生正在研究地理和时间上不同的新大陆史前人类样本的体型和体型变化。该项目使用了从美洲各地的大量遗址收集的考古骨骼的公制测量。这些测量将有助于显示美洲原住民的体型和体型模式随着时间的推移以及与环境的关系是如何变化的。具体地说，这项研究将讨论适应气候因素和生存战略(例如，饮食和食物获取)对身体变化的影响。它还将讨论这些关系如何有助于解释人口历史(人口流动和祖先)。收集的测量数据将被用来得出形态特征(身高、体重和身体比例)，使用传统的和最近开发的和改进的技术。这些性状之间的协变性将被评估，以调查身体各区域之间的形态异质性。例如，前臂长度相对于手臂长度的变化与肢体总长度相对于身体总长度的变化相比如何？同样，头骨的形态变异与身体其他部分的变异相比如何？这些结果将对解释过去只关注身体某些区域的研究，以及确定不同身体区域对环境因素的协调反应量具有重要意义。将使用代表地理有限地区若干时间段的样本来评估这种比例和大小随时间的变化，并将这些变化与已知的人口和生计变化联系起来。结果将使用群体关系的知识进行解释，并反过来可能有助于解决这些关联中的歧义。美洲原住民体型的变化和身体不同区域(如头骨和四肢)之间的图案对应关系从未在地理和时间上不同的样本中进行过评估。将这些模式与气候和营养等潜在影响联系起来，将阐明这些变量如何促进美洲和全球其他地区的生物多样性。此外，了解环境因素如何影响新大陆的身体形态和变化，对于理解人类进化和多样化的这些模式至关重要。现代人对美洲的殖民是研究其中许多专题的理想模式；与人类进化中其他一些已知的重大迁徙事件相比，新大陆人类在有限的时期内定居了不同的环境，并采取了过多的生存和文化习俗。这项研究的结果将导致对美洲原住民形态多样性的更全面的理解，以及这种形态多样性对环境因素的响应程度的变化。这些发现将更好地解释美洲原住民的起源、现存美洲原住民的殖民和多样性，以及现代人的一般生物适应。将制定重建考古种群身高和评估形态多样性的新标准，并向其他研究人员提供。此外，本研究中进行的研究将有助于完成奥尔巴赫先生的研究生培训。

Using support from the National Science Foundation, Mr. Benjamin Auerbach is investigating body size and shape variation among a geographically and temporally diverse prehistoric sample of New World humans. This project uses metric measures from archaeologically collected bones from an large number of sites throughout the Americas. These measures will help show how patterns of body size and shape have varied among Native Americans through time and in relation to their environments. Specifically, the study will address how physical variation has been affected by adaptations to climatic factors and to subsistence strategy (e.g., diet and food acquisition). It will also address how these relationships aid in interpreting population history (population movements and ancestry). The collected measures will be used to derive morphological characters (stature, body mass, and body proportions), employing conventional and recently-developed and refined techniques. Covariation among these characters will be assessed to investigate morphological heterogeneity among regions of the body. For example, how does variation in the length of the forearm, relative to the length of the arm, compare to variation in total limb length relative to total body length? Similarly, how does morphological variation in the skull compare to variation in the rest of the body? Results will have important implications for interpreting past studies that have only focused on some regions of the body, and for establishing the amount of coordinated response of different body regions to environmental factors. Samples that represent a number of time periods from geographically limited regions will be used to assess such changes in proportion and size over time, and relate these to known demographic and subsistence changes. The results will be interpreted using knowledge of group relationships and may, in turn, help resolve ambiguities in these associations. The variation of Native American body shape and the correspondence in patterns among different regions of the body (e.g., the skull and the limbs) have never been assessed among a geographically and temporally diverse sample. Correlating these patterns with potential influences such as climate and nutrition will elucidate how these variables contribute to biological diversity in the Americas and elsewhere around the globe. Moreover, understanding how environmental factors influence body shape and variation in the New World is critical for comprehending these patterns in human evolution and diversification in general. The colonization of the Americas by modern humans presents an ideal model by which to investigate many of these topics; New World humans settled varied environments and adopted a plethora of subsistence and cultural practices within a circumscribed period relative to some other known major migration events in human evolution. Results of this study will lead to a more holistic understanding of Native American morphological diversity and the extent to which this physical shape diversity has changed in response to environmental factors. Findings will better inform interpretations of Native American origins and colonization and diversity among living Native Americans, as well as general biological adaptation in modern humans. New standards for reconstructing stature and assessing morphological diversity in archaeological populations will be developed and made available to other researchers. Additionally, the research conducted in this study will assist in completing the graduate student training for Mr. Auerbach.