Doctoral Dissertation Research: Assessing Multiple Lines of Evidence for Gene Flow in Archaeological Contexts

重建过去人类的运动和互动，可以让我们更广泛地了解生物和文化过程，这些过程随着时间的推移塑造了人类群体。在这个博士论文项目中，研究人员将比较过去基于骨骼数据重建人类种群动态的两种方法。了解这些生物学方法的相对优点将支持更复杂的分析，这些分析依赖于过去人口的生物和文化数据。这个跨学科项目借鉴了进化人类学、遗传学、统计学和生物考古学的理论和方法。通过免费和低成本的课程和外联讲座，广大受众，包括后代社区成员、感兴趣的公众成员和STEM领域服务不足的学生，将参与关于人口动态的复杂性和这些进程在现代世界中的相关性的讨论。该项目将研究两种从骨学数据中识别基因流特征的方法，以解决关于过去人口互动的社会、文化和生物学方面的更大问题。本研究中比较的两种方法通过观察基因流动的两个潜在影响来确定基因流动的存在：群体之间在形态上更相似的程度(生物距离模型)，以及群体形态变异的增加(数量遗传模型)。这项研究将解决三个主要的研究问题：在使用两种不同的模型调查相同的骨骼遗骸的研究中，基因流动的推断是否有所不同？用一种生物学方法捕捉到的关于群体相互作用的重要细微差别是不能从另一种生物学方法推断出来的，还是需要两种方法一起使用才能更好地解决基因流动问题？最后，每种方法与从物质文化中建立的移民假说相比如何？这些问题将通过比较两种不同考古背景下的分析结果来解决，该区域的考古记录研究得很好。第一个背景有来自物质文化的证据，表明过去群体之间的迁移(和可能的基因流动)，第二个背景有物质文化证据表明文化分离，可能没有基因流动。通过这些测试，调查人员将评估各个模型在没有书面记录的情况下估计基因流动的能力。这一裁决反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Reconstructing the movements and interactions of humans in the past informs our broader understanding of the biological and cultural processes that have shaped human populations through time. In this doctoral dissertation project, the investigator will compare two methods used to reconstruct human population dynamics in the past based on skeletal data. Understanding the relative merits of these biological methods will support more complex analyses that rely on both biological and cultural data from past populations. The interdisciplinary project draws upon theory and methods from evolutionary anthropology, genetics, statistics, and bioarchaeology. Through free and low-cost courses and outreach talks, a broad audience, including members of descendant communities, interested members of the public, and underserved students in STEM fields, will engage in discussions about the complexities of human population dynamics and the relevance of these processes in the modern world. The project will investigate two methods for identifying signatures of gene flow from osteological data, in order to address larger questions about the social, cultural and biological aspects of population interactions in the past. The two methods compared in this study determine the presence of gene flow by looking at two of its potential effects: a greater degree of similarity in morphology between groups (the biological distance model), and an increase in group morphological variation (the quantitative genetic model). The study will address three primary research questions: Does the inference of gene flow differ between studies using two different models to investigate the same skeletal remains? Are important nuances about group interactions captured using one biological method that are not inferable from the other, or do both methods need to be used together to achieve better resolution about gene flow? And finally, how does each method compare to hypotheses of migration established from material culture? These questions will be addressed by comparing the results of two analyses in two different archaeological contexts within a region with a well-researched archaeological record. The first context has evidence from material culture that is indicative of past migration (and possible gene flow) between groups, and the second has material culture evidence indicating cultural separation and likely no gene flow. Through these tests, the investigators will evaluate the ability of individual models to estimate gene flow in contexts with no written records.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.