Ockham’s Razor

A somewhat out of date now link to an Ockham’s Razor program by David Rose (University of Sydney), which includes discussion of prehistory.

Environment and morphology in Australian Aborigines: A re-analysis of the Birdsell database

Environment and morphology in Australian Aborigines: A re-analysis of the Birdsell database

Ian Gilligan *, David Bulbeck

School of Archaeology and Anthropology, Australian National University, Canberra ACT 0200, Australia

email: Ian Gilligan (ian.g@bigpond.net.au)

^*Correspondence to Ian Gilligan, School of Archaeology and Anthropology, Australian National University, Canberra ACT 0200, Australia

setDOI(”ADOI=10.1002/ajpa.20640″)

Keywords

climatic adaptation • Bergmann’s rule • human variation

Abstract

Pursuant to his major research interest in the cultural ecology of hunter-gatherers, Birdsell collected an unparalleled body of phenotypic data on Aboriginal Australians during the mid twentieth century. Birdsell did not explicitly relate the geographic patterning in his data to Australia’s climatic variation, instead arguing that the observable differences between groups reflect multiple origins of Australian Aborigines. In this article, bivariate correlation and multivariate analyses demonstrate statistically significant associations between climatic variables and the body build of Australians that are consistent with the theoretical expectations of Bergmann’s and Allen’s rules. While Australian Aborigines in comparison to Eurasian and New World populations can be generally described as long-headed, linear in build, and characterized by elongated distal limbs, the variation in this morphological pattern across the continent evidently reflects biological adaptation to local Holocene climates. These results add to a growing body of evidence for the role of environmental selection in the development of modern human variation. Am J Phys Anthropol, 2007. © 2007 Wiley-Liss, Inc.

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Received: 18 July 2006; Accepted: 26 March 2007

Use of subpopulation data in Australian forensic DNA casework

Simon J. Walshab, R. John Mitchellc, Fraser Torpya, John S. Buckletond

Received 3 May 2007; accepted 9 May 2007. published online 18 June 2007.

 

Abstract

 

DNA profiling evidence presented in court should be accompanied by a reliable estimate of its evidential weight. In calculating such statistics, allele frequencies from commonly employed autosomal microsatellite loci are required. These allele frequencies should be collected at a level that appropriately represents the genetic diversity that exists in the population. Typically this occurs at broadly defined bio-geographic categories, such as Caucasian or Asian. Datasets are commonly administered at the jurisdictional level. This paper focuses on Australian jurisdictions and assesses whether this current practice is appropriate for Aboriginal Australian and Caucasian populations alike. In keeping with other studies we observe negligible differences between Caucasian populations within Australia when segregated geographically. However segregation of Aboriginal Australian population data along contemporary State and Territory lines appears to mask the diversity that exists within this subpopulation. For this reason datasets collated along more traditional lines may be more appropriate, particularly to distinguish the most genetically differentiated populations residing in the north of the continent.

Revealing the prehistoric settlement of Australia

New genetics article: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Homo sapiens populates the earth

Patrick Manning: Homo sapiens populates the earth: A provisional synthesis, privileging linguistic evidence.

Journal of World History. 17.2 (2006) 115-196 Link goes to full article.

Archaeology of Oceania

Archaeology of Oceania: Australia and the Pacific Islands. Book concentrates on the Pacific but there are some articles on Australian archaeology. Some linguists may raise their eyebrows at comments in the introduction. The first link is to the google print site; here’s a link to Amazon.

Keen: Constraints on the development of inequalities

The latest issue of Current Anthropology has the following article by Ian Keen:

Constraints on the Development of Enduring Inequalities in Late Holocene Australia: Ian Keen. volume 47 (2006), pages 7–38

Conditions in Late Holocene Australia, including variable and unpredictable environments, reliance on a wide array of food resources, relatively low population densities, some degree of mobility, and shared access to land and waters, contrast sharply with those posited as conditions for the emergence of complexity among hunter-gatherer societies such as those of the Northwest Coast of North America. Nevertheless, Aboriginal societies varied considerably in a number of ways, including resources of male power. In particular, the article contrasts features of “reproductive power” in the high- and very-high-polygyny societies of the north coast of Australia with those of other regions of the continent. High to very high polygyny developed in areas with relatively high population density and certain forms of kin classification and engendered considerable inequality among patri-groups, but various social and environmental conditions imposed constraints on the development of enduring hierarchy.