1,721,021 research outputs found
Kohonen Self Organizing Maps to unravel patterns of dental morphology in space and time
No full textThis review paper relies on two studies we conducted on the classification of human dental morphological data by means of Artificial neural networks (Anns). Analysed samples included Middle pleistocene to early holocene populations across Europe, North Africa and the Middle East. At that time, our research was directed to the classification of a recently discovered dental sample (Tabun cave, Israel) that was compared to a reference database composed of a large number of different samples in order to confirm its belonging to the neanderthal teeth morphotype
Dental morphological variation in autochthonous Cuban populations.
No full textThe present study analyses the dental morphological characteristics, by means of the ASU Dental Anthropology System, of 1262 individuals from the Caribbean. The individuals, dated from 2000 BCE to the end of the 15th century AD, and relative to the islands of Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico and Guadeloupe were organized on the basis of chronology, cultural affiliation, and geographic provenance in 13 distinct groups and analysed for 66 discrete dental characteristics. When investigated using multivariate statistics the groups map out clearly: the Cuban Guanahatabeys and the Cueva Roja pre-ceramic sample from the Dominican Republic separate from all of the other groups. A second indication emerges within the cluster that includes all of the more recent, pottery-bearing, groups. These do not appear to separate on the basis of cultural affiliation but of geography: with all the individuals from the north-western portion of the area under investigation well distinct from the more south-eastern ones. The results suggest the Guanahatabeys and Cueva Roja populations shared a common origin and settled into the Caribbean after one of the earlier migratory waves. It furthermore indicates that the transition from these two groups to the pottery bearing cultures was accompanied by substantial immigration and population change, once again supporting theories discussed in some of our previous studies according to which there must have been at least two distinct migratory waves into the Caribbean. Funding: Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs
The biocultural evolution in the Osmore valley. Morphological dental traits in pre-inca populations
No full textThe Osmore (Moquegua) Valley, in the South Central Andes, has an extremely varied history of human occupation that goes back at least 12,000 years (Rice, 1989). The discovery, over the past decades, of a
considerable number of Chinchorro, Tiwanaku, and Chiribaya mummies has triggered an extensive investigation of the cultural and genetic changes that took place in the valley in pre-Inca times (Blom, 2005; Blom et al., 1998; Lozada, 1998; Moraga et al., 2005; Sutter, 1997, 2000, 2005; Sutter and Mertz, 2004). These studies resulted in the formulation of different hypotheses that were aimed at accounting for the diversity and diffusion of the material culture throughout the region (Rostworowsky, 1977; Browman, 1980, 1984; Dillehay and Nuñez, 1988; Sutter, 2000). The most widely accepted hypothesis is the spread of ethnically diverse colonists from the Tiwanaku Empire, which occupied many areas of the Upper Osmore Valley, establishing permanent settlements like Chen Chen and Omo (Goldstein, 2013; Sutter and Sarrat, 2010). Archaeological evidence seems to indicate that the culturally and ethnically diverse Tiwanaku colonists had established relationships with the valley’s indigenous populations (Goldstein, 2013). Conversely, the fewer Wari outposts in the valley, such as Cerro Baul (Nash and Williams, 2005; Williams, 2001), seem not to have instituted cultural relationships with their neighboring communities
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Examining childhood stress through vertebral neural canal size: implications for the Developmental Origins of Health and Disease hypothesis.
No full textThere has been a recent emphasis in bioarchaeology on the relationship between early-life stress and risk for early mortality. Increasingly, this research is framed within the Developmental Origins of Health and Disease (DOHaD) hypothesis. Multiple skeletal indicators, including vertebral neural canal size, have been used to assess the link between stresses in childhood with risk of earlier mortality. Recent study of vertebral neural canal (VNC) size in archaeological samples has renewed some of the earlier promises of the method and is worth further study to better understand how childhood stress impacts health throughout the life course. In this poster we present vertebral neural canal data from the late medieval rural population of Villamagna (n = 72) of central Italy. Vertebral neural canals were measured following standard protocols, with thoracic elements considered separately from lumbar ones as they complete growth at different stages in the life course. Statistical analyses demonstrate that smaller transverse canals in both thoracic and lumbar vertebrae are associated with earlier age-at-death, while anterior-posterior canal measures are not. An important implication of these findings is that stress likely occurred later in childhood and into early adolescence, instead of in infancy and early childhood. These data are also discussed in relation to other indicators of early life stress to explore some of the potential uses of the Developmental Origins of Health and Disease hypothesis in bioarchaeological research
Salorno—Dos de la Forca (Adige Valley, Northern Italy): A unique cremation site of the Late Bronze Age
Full text linkThe archaeological site of Salorno—Dos de la Forca (Bozen, Alto Adige) provides one of the rarest and most significant documentations of cremated human remains preserved from an ancient cremation platform (ustrinum). The pyre area, located along the upper Adige valley, is dated to the Late Bronze Age (ca. 1150–950 BCE) and has yielded an unprecedented quantity of cremated human remains (about 63.5 kg), along with burnt animal bone fragments, shards of pottery, and other grave goods made in bronze and animal bone/antler. This study focuses on the bioanthropological analysis of the human remains and discusses the formation of the unusual burnt deposits at Salorno through comparisons with modern practices and protohistoric and contemporaneous archaeological deposits. The patterning of bone fragmentation and commingling was investigated using spatial data recorded during excavation which, along with the bioanthropological and archaeological data, are used to model and test two hypotheses: Salorno—Dos de la Forca would be the result of A) repeated primary cremations left in situ; or B) of residual material remaining after select elements were removed for internment in urns or burials to unknown depositional sites. By modelling bone weight and demographic data borrowed from regional affine contexts, the authors suggest that this cremation site may have been used over several generations by a small community–perhaps a local elite. With a quantity of human remains that exceeds that of any other coeval contexts interpreted as ustrina, Salorno may be the product of a complex series of rituals in which the human cremains did not receive individual burial, but were left in situ, in a collective/communal place of primary combustion, defining an area of repeated funeral ceremonies involving offerings and libations across a few generations. This would represent a new typological and functional category that adds to the variability of mortuary customs at the end of the Bronze Age in the Alpine are, at a time in which “globalising” social trends may have stimulated the definition of more private identities
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