Doctoral Dissertation Research: Cultural Factors and Y-Chromosome Variation in the Yanomamo

在人类历史的大部分时间里，小群体的社会结构、文化习俗和人口统计决定了人类基因变异的数量。这项研究调查了南美土著亚诺马莫人的y染色体变异。这一人口为早期人类社会的人口历史提供了一个模型（尽管这绝不是完美的，因为雅诺马人，像所有群体一样，受到更广泛背景的影响，包括农业和与外部世界的接触——通常是有害的接触）。尽管如此，小群体动态一直是塑造现代人类遗传多样性的最重要因素。这项研究使用了男性独有的Y染色体上的遗传标记，以了解导致人类Y染色体低变异性的进化模式。具体而言，本研究将探讨男性生殖成功率的差异以及人口增长和村庄社会结构的人口统计学过程如何影响y染色体变异的分布。此外，本研究将探讨文化接触如何改变y染色体变异的本地分布。这项研究利用并建立在文化人类学家的工作基础上，他们在过去三十年的田野调查中精确地记录了村庄的历史、家谱和人口模式。该项目产生的数据将与早期的数据以及目前其他关于线粒体和常染色体DNA的研究数据相结合，形成人类学历史上最全面的部落人口研究之一。总体结果将不仅是对雅诺马莫人的遗传模式，而且对形成所有人类遗传变异的过程有更深入的了解。特别是，这项研究将研究社会和文化因素影响人类在小群体环境中的变化方式的各个方面，在我们的历史上，大多数人类作为一个物种一直生活在这种环境中。

Small-group social structure, cultural practices, and demography have shaped the amount of human genetic variation throughout most of human history. This study examines Y-chromosome variation among a group of native South Americans, the Yanomamo. This population provides a model of the demographic history of early human society (though this is by no means perfect, as the Yanomama, like all groups, have been affected by their broader context, including agriculture and contact - often detrimental contact - with the outside world). Still, small group dynamics have been the most important factor shaping modern human genetic diversity.This study uses genetic markers on the Y chromosome, which is unique to males, in order to understand the evolutionary patterns that have lead to the low variability found on the human Y chromosome. Specifically, this study will examine how differential reproductive success among males and the demographic processes of population growth and village social structure effect the distribution of Y-chromosome variation. In addition, this study will examine how cultural contact has changed the native distribution of Y-chromosome variation. This study uses and builds on the work of cultural anthropologists who precisely documented village histories, genealogies and demographic patterns during fieldwork conducted over the last three decades. The data generated by this project will be combined with this earlier data as well as with the data from other current studies on mitochondrial and autosomal DNA to produce one of the most comprehensive studies of a tribal population in the history of anthropology. The overall result will be a deeper understanding not only of the genetic patterns of the Yanomamo, but also of the processes that have shaped the genetic variation of all human beings. In particular, this study will examine aspects of the way that social and cultural factors affect human variation in the small-group circumstances in which most human populations throughout our history as a species have lived.