Male physical attractiveness ratings by British and Greek women

I would appreciate it if someone e-mailed me a copy of this article, since I can't seem to locate it online.

UPDATE. Never mind, I have found a copy of the paper:

In particular, researchers think that women prefer men whose torsos have the shape of an inverted triangle--that is, a narrow waist and a broad chest and shoulders--which is consistent with physical strength and muscle development in the upper body. This finding is comparable with findings of other studies in which researchers used line drawings that show that women prefer men with a V shape (wider shoulders than chest, which is wider than the hips; Frederick & Haselton, 2003; Furnham & Radley, 1989; Lavrakas, 1975). This set of findings is in marked contrast with those of studies of female bodily attractiveness, which have indicated the possibility that body weight is overwhelmingly the most important determinant of attractiveness, with the WHR playing a minor role (Swami, in press; Swami & Furnham, 2006; Swami & Tovee, 2005a; Swami, Antonakopoulos, Tovee, & Furnham, 2006; Swami, Caprario, Tovee, & Furnham, 2006; Wilson, Tripp, & Boland, 2005).

...

The total variance that was explained by this model for the relationship between WCR and attractiveness ratings was 44.8% for the Greek participants and 54.6% for the British participants, indicating the possibility that WCR was the primary component of attractiveness ratings for both groups. Figure 2 shows the corresponding relationship for attractiveness and BMI, with both sets also being significantly explained by BMI, p < .05. However, the total variance that was explained by the relationship between BMI and attractiveness was noticeably smaller: 26.7% for the Greek group and 19.7% for the British group. This finding indicates the possibility that although BMI is an important additional component of attractiveness ratings for both groups, its importance is not as great as that of WCR. Finally, the relationship between attractiveness ratings and WHR was not significant for either group, ps > .05.

...

First, it is noticeable from Figure 1 that the gradient of the relationship between attractiveness and WCR is different between the two groups: -13.88 for the Greek participants and -7.56 for the British participants. That is, the Greek participants appeared to judge a body that was more V-shaped (lower WCR) as more attractive than did British participants.

...

To explore this possibility, we followed Swami and Tovee (2005b) in fitting second-order polynomials for BMI to the attractiveness ratings made by all participants in both groups, allowing us to calculate the BMI at peak attractiveness for each participant. The peak was 21.34 kg/[m.sup.2] for the Greek group and 23.07 kg/[m.sup.2] for the British group. A one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) showed that there was an overall significant difference between the two peak BMIs, F(1, 75) = 28.80, p < .05. This result suggests that although Greek women may prefer men with a more muscular body build, they also seem to differ from British women in preferring a thinner male physique.

...

This explanation indicates the possibility that individuals who adopt traditional gender roles tend to have preferences for body shapes that are defined as attractive in the traditional sense, namely hour-glass shapes for women and muscular V shapes for men. In contrast, individuals who adopt liberated gender roles have less stereotyped preferences. Although we did not explicitly measure gender-role stereotyping in the two cultures that we sampled in the present study, there is some evidence indicating the possibility that Greece has more gender-role stereotyping than does Britain (e.g., Apparala, Reifman, & Munsch, 2003). Thus, it is possible that Greek women place greater importance on a low WCR than do British women because they inhabit a culture where gender roles are more strongly differentiated.

Interestingly from Carleton S. Coon, The Races of Europe about the modern Greeks:

"Their mean stature, 168 cm., is moderately tall; their bodily proportions are for the most part intermediate; the shoulders arc broad, the trunk length moderate, as shown by a relative sitting height of 52.9; the relative span is 104."

J Soc Psychol. 2007 Feb;147(1):15-26.

Male physical attractiveness in Britain and Greece: a cross-cultural study.

Swami V, Smith J, Tsiokris A, Georgiades C, Sangareau Y, Tovee MJ, Furnham A.

Department of Psychology, University College London. virenswami@hotmail.com

The waist-to-chest ratio (WCR), body mass index (BMI), and waist-to-hip ratio (WHR) are the major cues to women's ratings of men's bodily attractiveness (J. T. Fan, W. Dai, F. Liu, & J. Wu, 2005; D. M. Maisey, E. L. E. Vale, P. L. Cornelissen, & M. J. Tovee, 1999; V. Swami & M. J. Tovee, 2005b). The authors examined the relative importance of each of these cues cross-culturally in Greece and Britain. Participants were 36 British and 40 Greek women who rated a set of images of real men with known WCR, BMI, and WHR. The results showed that, regardless of the cultural setting, WCR was the primary determinant of men's physical attractiveness to women, with BMI playing a minor role. However, there were also cross-cultural differences: The Greek women showed a stronger preference for a lower WCR and smaller overall body weight than did the British women. The authors considered possible explanations of these findings.

Link

More on the "Jesus Family Tomb"

I finally saw the Discovery channel documentary about the so-called Jesus Family Tomb. I had questioned before why DNA samples were retrieved from only two individuals, "Jesus" and "Mary Magdalene". The thesis of the documentary is that there are specific familial relations between the individuals buried in the Talpiot Tomb. For example, an mtDNA study could reject the hypothesis that "Jesus" and "Jose" were brothers, that "Maria" was the mother of "Jesus", that "Judah" was the son of "Mary Magdalene" etc. Why were there just two DNA tests performed?

After watching the documentary, I realized that the DNA was not extracted from the bones found within the ossuaries themselves but rather from scrapings of bone fragments from the ossuaries, because the bones contained in the ossuaries were reburied for religious reasons.

It is sad that religion and science are at odds in this instance, just as they are when Native American "elders" demand the reburial of prehistoric Americans or British "pagans" do the same for prehistoric Britons. Of course I don't know whether the bones were buried in a way that makes their identification possible, but I suspect that it is not. Otherwise, why would they choose to extract DNA from bone scrapings rather than the original bones themselves?

It is scientifically criminal to rebury ancient human remains in a way that makes their future scientific use impossible. I am not against the reburial of persons whose religious faith can be reasonably ascertained, but the demands of individuals who have no direct family relationship with the deceased cannot be absolute. Their religious interest cannot take first place ahead of the scientific interests.

Of course, one could argue that no one knew back then that this controversy would arise in 2007, and that is a valid point. But, the real issue is not whether these remains belong to Jesus' family, but that all the genetic information that could be extracted from that well-preserved multi-person tomb now appears to have been almost completely lost.

If the remains in the different ossuaries were disposed in a way that did not destroy all hope of their scientific study, then it is curious why they were not studied by the documentary makers. If they were, then the Israeli authorities should rethink their policies about the treatment of ancient osteological material.

BBC poll on countries' influence

Israel, Iran top 'negative list'

A majority of people believe that Israel and Iran have a mainly negative influence in the world, a poll for the BBC World Service suggests.

It shows that the two countries are closely followed by the United States and North Korea.

The poll asked 28,000 people in 27 countries to rate a dozen countries plus the EU in terms of whether they have a positive or negative influence.

Canada, Japan and the EU are viewed most positively in the survey.

The pdf of the poll contains more details.

Debate on skin-color sexual dimorphism

A letter and a response were published online in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology (no abstracts). Skin-color sexual dimorphism is the lighter pigmentation of women (of a population) relative to the men.

Human skin-color sexual dimorphism: A test of the sexual selection hypothesis. Reply to Frost (2007) (p NA)
Lorena Madrigal, William Kelly

Human skin-color sexual dimorphism: A test of the sexual selection hypothesis (p NA)
Peter Frost

Women have lighter skin than men do across a wide range of populations, even on the unexposed skin of the upper inner arm, possibly because of sexual selection by men for lighter-skinned women. If this hypothesis is true, human skin color should become more sexually dimorphic with increasing distance from the equator, since sexual selection for lighter skin in women would be less constrained by natural selection for darker skin in both sexes. Yet when Madrigal and Kelly (2006) analyzed skin reflectance data from 53 different samples, they found that the most dimorphic human populations were actually those of medium skin color at medium latitudes.

There is a discussion about this issue in the older blog post about Madrigal and Kelly's study with some comments from Peter Frost himself. That article also contains a very useful table of skin reflectance data in the end. Some Caucasoid (incl. some Indian ones) data points from the table (at wavelength 685), with females first, males second, and higher values designating lighter skin (more reflectance). In these data points it looks to me that Iranians and Kurds have the highest sexual dimorphism. Are Iranian males really much darker than females?

Punjab 53.64 54.52
Sikh 55.52 53.2
Jirel 56.64 49.12
Yemen 56.94 53.15
Algiers 58.04 58
Iran 60.1 51.2
Kurdish 60.02 54.89
Europeans 63.1 61.5
Belgians 63.65 64.51
Viscaya (Basques) 65.78 65.25
Belgians 65.9 67.3
Guipuzcoa (Basques) 66.38 65.53

UPDATE (March 7): Racial Reality also had a table of skin reflectance data.

AAPA 2007 abstracts

The 2007 meeting of the American Association of Physical Anthropologists will be held in about a month. As in previous years, here are some interesting abstracts to be presented at the meeting (pdf).

(up to page 94)

Homo floresiensis Cranial and Mandibular Morphology
J.Y. Anderson, University of New Mexico
These results suggest the Flores material does not represent a population derived from Australomelanesians, and do not represent a non-pathological dwarfed population of Homo sapiens. These results do not completely rule out a representation of a microcephalic dwarfed population, at the same time it is suggested possible affinities to earlier hominin groups is equally parsimonious.

Do Qafzeh and Skhūl represent the ancestors of Upper Paleolithic modern humans? A dental perspective.
S.E. Bailey et al.
If these fossils represent the source of early Upper Paleolithic people, there is no need to invoke admixture with Neandertals to explain archaic dental features observed in some early Upper Paleolithic humans.

Ancient Cemetery Social Patterning Project: Ancient DNA in Tirup Cemetery.
L.E. Baker et al.

Reconstructing the settlement history of the central Andes from mitochondrial DNA analyses.
K. Batai et al.
We found that among central Andean ancient and modern population samples, haplogroup B frequencies increased through time, while haplogroup A frequencies declined. At this point, we do not yet have sufficient data to determine whether these patterns indicate different population histories between ancient coastal and modern highland populations, or a larger temporal trend in entire central Andes region

Analysis of Genetic Diversity in Ethnic Populations of Afghanistan
P. Bermudez et al.
The Middle East has the distinction of being a major crossroads of human migration. The genetic diversity of Afghanistan, however, has long remained a missing piece to this rich and complex puzzle. To explore both the diversity within Afghanistan and to understand the relative genetic contributions from various groups throughout the Eurasian continent, buccal swabs were collected from 252 unrelated Afghani men for mitochondrial DNA analysis. Each of these men hailed from
one of four major ethnic groups inhabiting the region: the Pashtun, Hazara, Tajik or
Nooristani. The Indo-Iranian speaking Pashtun represent the largest ethnic group in Afghanistan; the Tajiks have a complex genetic history that likely involves admixture between Turkic groups and smaller distinct ethnic groups within Afghanistan; the Hazara, on the other hand, are thought to represent remnants of Ghengis Khan’s army left behind as it expanded through Asia; and the Nooristani have biological links to populations in northern Pakistan and the
claim of descent from Alexander the Great’s army. All samples were analyzed for HVS1
and SNP variation. In all of these populations, Western Eurasian haplogroups (H, HV, R, J, I, U, X) were most common, with the highest frequency occurring in the Nooristanis, while the remaining East Eurasian haplogroups including D, G, and various other M types. The results of this study will be instrumental in expanding our knowledge of Afghani genetic history, in addition to broadening our understanding of population migrations throughout West and Central Asia.

Dental variation in Holocene Khoesan populations.
W. Black et al.

Are the Koh an indigenous population of the Hindu Kush? II: a dental morphology investigation.

S. Blaylock and B.E. Hemphill

Little is known about the population history of the ethnic groups in Chitral District, Pakistan, an area long been regarded as the “crossroads of Asia.” Some scholars emphasize that the Koh lifeway is the consequence of long-standing indigenous isolation. Others stress the equestrian
tradition among Koh villagers indicate they are descendants of Central Asians who emigrated across the Hindu Kush Mountains during the second millennium BC. To still others, an array of Persian linguistic inclusions indicates the Koh are more recent emigrants from the Iranian Plateau. This investigation tests these hypotheses for Koh origins through assessment of dental
morphology variations of the permanent dentition scored as 17 tooth-trait combination in accordance with the Arizona State University Dental Morphology System in a sample of 134 Kho school children from Chitral City. These data were contrasted with 17 additional samples. Comparisons are in two stages and include cluster analysis, multidimensional scaling and principal coordinates analysis. First, sex-pooled and sex-specific data compared Koh to six contemporary ethnic groups from India. Results indicate the Koh share equidistant affinities to Indo-European speaking west-Central Indian and Dravidianspeaking South Indian ethnic groups.
Second, sex-pooled data compared the Koh to 13 prehistoric samples from Neolithic to Early Iron Age sites located in the Indus Valley, Central Asia and the Iranian Plateau. Results indicate that the Koh share little affinity to prehistoric Indus Valley groups. Rather, the Koh share nearly equal affinities to prehistoric inhabitants of the Iranian Plateau and Central Asia.

A Howells grasp on prehistoric and recent Japan: A precursor to the Kennewick connection.
C. L. Brace, N. Seguchi.
Using many more samples, our results are compatible with what Howells showed for his Japanese comparisons, and,using the neighbor-joining technique, we can go on to show that Kennewick ties with the Ainu who are the descendants of the Jōmon.The Jōmon then are the probable ancestors of
the first inhabitants of the western hemisphere.

Admixture in Mexico City: implications for admixture mapping.
E. Cameron et al.
"The average proportions of Native American, European and West African admixture were estimated as 65%, 30% and 5% respectively."

"In a logistic model with higher educational status as dependent variable, the odds ratio for higher educational status associated with an increase from 0 to 1 in European admixture proportions was 9.4 (95% credible interval 3.8 – 22.6). This association of socioeconomic status with individual admixture proportion shows that genetic stratification in this population is
paralleled, and possibly maintained, by socioeconomic stratification."

Intracontinental Distribution of Haplotype Variation: Implications for Human Demographic History.
M.C. Campbell et al.
"These results suggest that diverse African populations were more subdivided with lower levels of gene flow during human history."

Social stratification in a Christian cemetery? An assessment of stress indicators and social status at Anglo-Saxon Raunds.
E.F. Craig, J.L. Buckberry
"The occurrence of statistically more individuals with both cribra orbitalia and tibial periostitis in plain graves rather than graves with stone arrangements, and LEH in plain graves rather than graves with a cover or marker, suggests that individuals buried in more elaborate graves enjoyed better levels of health and may been of higher social status than those buried in plain graves."

Variability of the Stature of the Central European Population from the Neolithic Age to Present
M. Dobisíková, S. Katina, P. Velemínský
The aim of our contribution is to characterize the changes of the stature in adult populations that have lived in Central Europe from the Neolithic period up to the present. Our sample consisted of 802 male and 704 female skeletons. The evaluation was conducted taking into account the demographic structure of the groups studied. We confronted the findings with the living
conditions of the populations known to have a significant impact on human stature, in
addition to genetic factors. We thus considered the socioeconomic status of the populations that might have influenced the quality of nutrition. We focused our attention on the socioeconomic aspect of populations of the early Middle Ages and the recent population. We compared socially higher placed part of the society with socially poorer classes (agricultural groups) (177 male, 178 female) in the early-medieval population of Great Moravia. No statistically significant
differences were found among individual social groups. To calculate the stature of last populations we used the regression equations developed by Breitiger (1937) and Bach (1965). The
calculation was based only on the length of the femur that is directly involved in body length. The impact of the secular trend was evaluated in the recent population. We compared two autopsy skeletal samples from the beginning and ends of the 20th century (107 male, 53 female). Statistically significant differences between them was found. Finally, we proposed regression equations for calculating the stature of the contemporary Czech population usable in forensic practice.

A phylogeographic analysis of haplogroup D5 and its implications for the peopling of East Asia.
M.C. Dulik
While genetic studies have focused on the Altai region of South Siberia as a possible place of origin for Native Americans, it is also possible that it played a similarly significant role in the peopling of East Asia. A Siberian connection to other East Asian populations has already been proposed based on archaeological, linguistic and classical genetic marker evidence. In this study, we examined a rare and ancient haplogroup, D5c, in an effort to elucidate early population movements in East Asia. Previous studies suggested that D5 first emerged in China and
spread northwards from there. However,given the number of D5c individuals (12) and the range of variation in D5 from the Altai region, it is conceivable that this haplogroup instead originated in South Siberia and spread from there during the initial movements of Paleolithic peoples. To est this hypothesis, we obtained complete mtDNA sequences for individuals represented by aplogroups D4 and D5 and acquired additional sequences available through GenBank and published literature. We then analyzed the entire dataset with the reduced median network approach and
phylogeographic modeling. Our results suggest that Southern Siberia did play a
critical role in the spread of the D5 haplogroup. This focus on relatively unique
mtDNA lineages specific to certain populations allowed us to better understand
the processes of ancient settlement and subsequent population movements that helped shape the current genetic landscape of East Asia.

More than meets the eye: LB1, the transforming hominin.
R.B. Eckhard et al.

LB1 is not a microcephalic.
D. Falk1 et al.

Is there biological meaning to “Hispanic” in New Mexico?
H.J.H. Edgar, C.M. Willermet

Establishing the nature of the differences between skull samples from two populations.
S.P. Evans et al.
A sample of 1188 skulls from the Romano-British site at Poundbury shows differences from the 18th century sample of 822 skulls from Spitalfields. Both sites are in the south of England, but 1400 years apart in time. The differences between the sites could be due to immigrations over time and/or to adaptation to the environment. The aim of the study was to establish the nature of the differences, in particular the relative importance of genetic and acquired traits.
Frequencies of 22 selected non-metric traits in juvenile, female and male skulls were analysed. Initial logistic regression analyses established that there was a substantial difference between the two sites and between juveniles and adults, with some sexual dimorphism. The modified mean
measure of divergence, used to calculate overall distances between the groups, showed the juvenile groups to be closer to each other than to adults from their respective sites. Across sites, males were most distant from each other. The largest distance was between Spitalfields juveniles and males. Principal coordinate analysis, followed by a jackknife stability analysis, revealed a pattern indicating that this came about through growth and adaptation. Omitting traits in turn, procrustes methods were used to identify the most influential, all of which
were acquired through ageing or lifestyle. Without these traits there was no significant
difference between the two juvenile groups and no sexual dimorphism. These results show the importance of the behavioural environment in determining morphology, and the resilience of populations to genetic change.

Peopling of the Pacific: resolving the controversy.
J.S. Friedlaender et al.
"Our survey of mitochondrial DNA, Ychromosome, and over 600 short tandem repeat polymorphisms and 200 insertiondeletions from over 40 Pacific populations indicates Polynesians have their genetic
origins to both Melanesian and Taiwanese (Southeast Asian) populations in significant degrees. In Island Melanesia, there is a small but clear ancient genetic footprint in certain Oceanic-speaking populations (i.e., linguistically related to Polynesian). The survey results underscore the extraordinary diversity of Island Melanesian populations from one language group to another, and from island to island. This is the result of the small sizes of the populations and the very long extent of modern human settlement there (over 30,000 years)."

Multivariate studies of cranial form: the impact of Howells' research on defining Homo sapiens.
J.B. Gaines et al.

Demographic simulations of the admixture between foragers and farmers in central European Neolithic.
P. Galeta, J. Bruzek.

William White Howells: A physical anthropologist in the making.
E. Giles

The relationship of Nubians with their neighbors, the Egyptians.
By, K. Godde.

The Phylogeography of Haplogroup N1a
Gokcumen O et al.
Recent studies have revealed a complex geographic distribution of haplogroup N1a. This rare and distinctive lineage is widely distributed across Eurasia and Africa, but always found at very low frequencies. However, despite its rarity, the genetic diversity within N1a has remained relatively high (h=0.9605). The reduced median network of N1a haplotypes not only reflects
this level of diversity, but also exhibits several relatively well-defined branches. The
distribution of N1a is intriguing because of revealing previously unrecognized connections between populations. What makes N1a even more interesting is the prevalence of this lineage in ancient European populations. Haak et al. (2005) found that 25% of their European Neolithic
samples belonged to N1a and dated to ~5000 BCE, whereas the frequency of this lineage in contemporary Europeans is only ~0.2%. In addition, an Iron Age skeleton from Kazakhstan had an N1a haplotype, suggesting the existence of this lineage in the Altai Republic in ~500BCE (Ricaut et al. 2004). Indeed, we found several haplogroup N1a mtDNAs in indigenous Altaians and Altaian Kazakhs. To further elucidate the phylogeography of this lineage in Central Asia, we sequenced the whole mtDNA genomes of our N1a haplotypes, and analyzed the resulting data with several quantitative methods and simulation programs to estimate their expansion times and spatial
distribution in Eurasia. Our findings suggest that there are two well-defined sublineages
within N1a, and that the dispersal of this haplogroup could be associated with the Neolithic expansion and with prehistoric interactions between Central Asian and European populations.


Understanding human races: the retreat of neutralism.
Henry Harpending
Discussion and debate about human races has been dominated for decades by neutral theory and statistics. Since this literature never posed a real question, it has never produced an answer. Lewontin's 1972 paper with its claim that a value of 1/8 of a statistic like Fst is “small” and that this means that human race differences are insignificant is a staple of our textbooks. Recently geneticists have had a closer look and pointed out that Fst of 1/8 describes differences among sets of half sibs and few claim that half sibs are insignificantly related. Anthony Edwards has shown that the significance of differences is in the correlation structure of a large number of traits, again denying the Lewontin assertion that human differences are small. Alan Templeton in 1998 claimed that human races were less differentiated that races of some other large mammals, but he compared human nuclear DNA statistics with statistics from mtDNA in the other species. An appropriate comparison shows that human are more, not less, differentiated than other large mammal species. Since neutral differences are a passive
record of demographic history they are not very significant for issues of functional biology. Newly available data sources allow us to study the natural selection of race differences instead of their drift. It appears that there is a lot of ongoing evolution in our species and the loci under strong selection on different continents only partially overlap. Human race differences may be increasing rapidly.

Acceleration of adaptive evolution in modern humans.
J. Hawks and G. Cochran
Humans vastly increased in numbers during the past 40,000 years. Recent surveys of human genomic variation have suggested a large surplus of recent positive selection, indicated by excess linkage disequilibrium and skewed SNP frequency spectra. We applied estimates of prehistoric and historic population sizes to estimate the importance of population growth in explaining the number of recent adaptive mutations. Our estimates are consistent with genomic evidence in suggesting that the rate of generation of positively selected genes has increased as much as a hundredfold during the past 40,000 years.

Do skeletal features reflect this genomic evidence of selection? Under positive
selection, rapid appearance of new variants during the terminal Pleistocene and early
Holocene would cause maximal phenotypic change during the last 2000-4000 years. We compared original and published series of Holocene cranial data from Europe, Jordan, Nubia, South Africa, and China, in addition to Late Pleistocene samples from Europe and West Asia, to test the hypothesis that the genomic acceleration in positive selection correlates with phenotypic evolution during this time period. A constellation of features in the face and cranial vault, notably including endocranial volume, changed globally during this time period and documents common patterns of selection in different regions. Holocene changes were similar in pattern and chronologically faster than those at the archaic-modern transition, which themselves were rapid compared to earlier hominid evolution. In genomic and craniometric terms, the origin of modern humans was a minor event compared to more recent evolutionary changes.

Patterns of admixture in Mexican Americans assessed from 101,150 SNPs.
M.G. Hayes et al.
"No significant differences were observed between the 10 subsets, allowing us to average the admixture estimates across the subsets: 68% European, 27% Asian (as a proxy for Native American), and 6% African."

Gender, wealth, and status in Bronze Age Central Asia: a dental pathology investigation.
B.E. Hemphill.

Sahara passage: the post-glacial recolonisation of North Africa by mitochondrial L* haplotypes.
AD Holden. P Forster.

Secular trends of the European male facial skull from the Migration Period to the present.
E. Jonke et al.
We examined secular trends in the facial skull over three Central European samples spanning more than 13 centuries. Data are 43 conventional cephalometric landmark points for samples dating from 680–830 CE, from the mid-19th Century, and from living Austrian young adult males. Methods of geometric morphometrics demonstrate shape differences across the samples, and also
differences in allometry. There is a stronginteraction between these, so that group mean differences are different for small and large individuals (equivalently, allometry is
different from period to period). The oldest sample, from the Migration Period, exhibits
allometric features that may possibly be Turkic. There are implications for the
craniofacial biologist interested in growth trends or growth predictions in ethnically
mixed populations. There are also implications for the discussion concerning the morphology of the Avars (an ethnic group of probably Central Asian origin who conquered large parts of Central Europe during the Migration Period and who interbred with other incoming groups after their conquest by Charlemagne), and also the relation of these findings to current thinking on gnathic reduction trends.

Roman Gladiators - The Osseous Evidence.
F. Kanz, K. Grossschmidt

Paternal heritage for the Indonesian peoples.
T. M. Karafet et al.

Feeding the children: Isotopic evidence for weaning practices in the ancient Greek colony of Apollonia (5th-2nd centuries BC).
C. Kwok, A. Keenleyside.

Misconceptions about the postcranial skeleton of Homo floresiensis.
S.G. Larson et al.

A comparison of mitochondrial DNA and Y chromosome DNA variation on Manus Island.
K.E. Latham et al.

mtDNA of Saudi Arabians

BMC Evol Biol. 2007 Mar 1;7(1):32 [Epub ahead of print]

Eurasian and African mitochondrial DNA influences in the Saudi Arabian population.

Abu-Amero KK, Gonzalez AM, Larruga JM, Bosley TM, Cabrera VM.

ABSTRACT: BACKGROUND: Genetic studies of the Arabian Peninsula are scarce even though the region was the center of ancient trade routes and empires and may have been the southern corridor for the earliest human migration from Africa to Asia. A total of 120 mtDNA Saudi Arab lineages were analyzed for HVSI/II sequences and for haplogroup confirmatory coding diagnostic positions. A phylogeny of the most abundant haplogroup (preHV)1 (R0a) was constructed based on 13 whole mtDNA genomes. RESULTS: The Saudi Arabian group showed greatest similarity to other Arabian Peninsula populations (Bedouin from the Negev desert and Yemeni) and to Levantine populations. Nearly all the main western Asia haplogroups were detected in the Saudi sample, including the rare U9 clade. Saudi Arabs had only a minority sub-Saharan Africa component (7%), similar to the specific North-African contribution (5%). In addition, a small Indian influence (3%) was also detected. CONCLUSION: The majority of the Saudi-Arab mitochondrial DNA lineages (85%) have a western Asia provenance. Although the still large confidence intervals, the coalescence and phylogeography of (preHV)1 haplogroup (accounting for 18 % of Saudi Arabian lineages) matches a Neolithic expansion in Saudi Arabia.


Link (pdf)

Reconstructed face of Paleolithic woman from Sicily

'First' Sicilian Woman Gets Face

PALERMO (ANSA) - The face of a late Stone Age woman who lived in Sicily has been reconstructed by a sculptor working with anthropologists at Palermo University.

The skeleton of the woman, who lived 14,000 years ago, was discovered in a cave near Messina in 1937, along with the incomplete skeletons of six other humans, presumably her family.

The face was reproduced using reconstruction techniques that calculate the appearance of features from the form of the cranium. The same techniques have been used recently to recreate the faces of Egyptian pharaohs and Italy's own Count Ugolino, a 13th-century Tuscan noble whose bones were found in 2001.

Artistic licence was used when deciding to give the ancient Sicilian the same black hair common in modern women from southern Italy.

Thea, as she has been nicknamed, spent most of her life hunting, or gathering fruit and plants. At 165 cm, she was tall for her time. Experts estimate that when she died she was about 30, much older than the normal life expectancy in the late Stone Age.

"This means that she must have had a healthy and regular lifestyle," said Valerio Agnesi, director of the 'Gemmellaro' museum where the face, along with a recreation of her cave environment, is now on display.

Mysteries from Petrarch's tomb

From the paper:

The mtDNA sequence obtained from the rib (HVRI motif: 126 193 311) is a J2 and it was only described twice in a database of 6216 sequences [13], once in the Middle East and once in Italy (frequency 0.00032). The tooth mtDNA sequence, on the contrary, is more frequent; it is an H* (HVR I motif: 129), found 52 times in the same database (frequency 0.008365) among various sites in Italy (N = 2), Iberia (N = 27), the Middle East (N = 4) and Souss (North Africa) (N = 1).

...

The reassembled skeleton bore evidence of injuries compatible with those mentioned by Petrarca during his lifetime.

Interestingly Petrarch was from Tuscany, which may be relevant given the recent work on the origins of the Etruscans.

Forensic Sci Int. 2007 Feb 21; [Epub ahead of print]

Genetic analysis of the skeletal remains attributed to Francesco Petrarca.

Caramelli D et al.

We report on the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) analysis of the supposed remains of Francesco Petrarca exhumed in November 2003, from the S. Maria Assunta church, in Arqua Padua (Italy) where he died in 1374. The optimal preservation of the remains allowed the retrieval of sufficient mtDNA for genetic analysis. DNA was extracted from a rib and a tooth and mtDNA sequences were determined in multiple clones using the strictest criteria currently available for validation of ancient DNA sequences, including independent replication. MtDNA sequences from the tooth and rib were not identical, suggesting that they belonged to different individuals. Indeed, molecular gender determination showed that the postcranial remains belonged to a male while the skull belonged to a female. Historical records indicated that the remains were violated in 1630, possibly by thieves. These results are consistent with morphological investigations and confirm the importance of integrating molecular and morphological approaches in investigating historical remains.

Link

Early Europeans unable to digest milk

This is the EurekAlert release; I did not see the PNAS article online yet.

The first direct evidence that early Europeans were unable to digest milk has been found by scientists at UCL (University College London) and Mainz University.

In a study, published in the journal 'PNAS', the team shows that the gene that controls our ability to digest milk was missing from Neolithic skeletons dating to between 5840 and 5000 BC. However, through exposure to milk, lactose tolerance evolved extremely rapidly, in evolutionary terms. Today, it is present in over ninety per cent of the population of northern Europe and is also found in some African and Middle Eastern populations but is missing from the majority of the adult population globally.

Dr Mark Thomas, UCL Biology, said: "The ability to drink milk is the most advantageous trait that's evolved in Europeans in the recent past. Without the enzyme lactase, drinking milk in adulthood causes bloating and diarrhoea. Although the benefits of milk tolerance are not fully understood yet, they probably include: the continuous supply of milk compared to the boom and bust of seasonal crops; its nourishing qualities; and the fact that it's uncontaminated by parasites, unlike stream water, making it a safer drink. All in all, the ability to drink milk gave some early Europeans a big survival advantage."

The team carried out DNA tests on Neolithic skeletons from some of the earliest organised farming communities in Europe. Their aim was to find out whether these early Europeans from various sites in central, northeast and southeast Europe, carried a version of the lactase gene that controls our ability to produce the essential enzyme lactase into adulthood. The team found that it was absent from their ancient bone DNA. This led the researchers to conclude that the consumption and tolerance of milk would have been very rare or absent at the time.

Scientists have known for decades that at some point in the past all humans were lactose intolerant. What was not known was just how recently lactose tolerance evolved.

Dr Thomas said: "To go from lactose tolerance being rare or absent seven to eight thousand years ago to the commonality we see today in central and northern Europeans just cannot be explained by anything except strong natural selection. Our study confirms that the variant of the lactase gene appeared very recently in evolutionary terms and that it became common because it gave its carriers a massive survival advantage. Scientists have inferred this already through analysis of genes in today's population but we've confirmed it by going back and looking at ancient DNA."

This study challenges the theory that certain groups of Europeans were lactose tolerant and that this inborn ability led the community to pursue dairy farming. Instead, they actually evolved their tolerance of milk within the last 8000 years due to exposure to milk.

Dr Thomas said: "There were two theories out there: one that lactose tolerance led to dairy farming and another that exposure to milk led to the evolution of lactose tolerance. This is a simple chicken or egg question but one that is very important to archaeologists, anthropologists and evolutionary biologists. We found that the lactose tolerance variant of the lactase gene only became common after dairy farming, which started around 9 thousand years ago in Europe.

"This is just one part of the picture researchers are gathering about lactose tolerance and the origins of Europeans. Next on the list is why there is such disparity in lactose tolerance between populations. It's striking, for example, that today around eighty per cent of southern Europeans cannot tolerate lactose even though the first dairy farmers in Europe probably lived in those areas. Through computer simulations and DNA testing we are beginning to get glimpses of the bigger early European picture."

UPDATE: abstract (1 March)

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 10.1073/pnas.0607187104

bsence of the lactase-persistence-associated allele in early Neolithic Europeans

J. Burger et al.

Lactase persistence (LP), the dominant Mendelian trait conferring the ability to digest the milk sugar lactose in adults, has risen to high frequency in central and northern Europeans in the last 20,000 years. This trait is likely to have conferred a selective advantage in individuals who consume appreciable amounts of unfermented milk. Some have argued for the "culture-historical hypothesis," whereby LP alleles were rare until the advent of dairying early in the Neolithic but then rose rapidly in frequency under natural selection. Others favor the "reverse cause hypothesis," whereby dairying was adopted in populations with preadaptive high LP allele frequencies. Analysis based on the conservation of lactase gene haplotypes indicates a recent origin and high selection coefficients for LP, although it has not been possible to say whether early Neolithic European populations were lactase persistent at appreciable frequencies. We developed a stepwise strategy for obtaining reliable nuclear ancient DNA from ancient skeletons, based on (i) the selection of skeletons from archaeological sites that showed excellent biomolecular preservation, (ii) obtaining highly reproducible human mitochondrial DNA sequences, and (iii) reliable short tandem repeat (STR) genotypes from the same specimens. By applying this experimental strategy, we have obtained high-confidence LP-associated genotypes from eight Neolithic and one Mesolithic human remains, using a range of strict criteria for ancient DNA work. We did not observe the allele most commonly associated with LP in Europeans, thus providing evidence for the culture-historical hypothesis, and indicating that LP was rare in early European farmers.

Link

James Cameron and the "Lost Tomb of Jesus"

From a news story:

The Talpiot Tomb could be soon the most famous holy relic in the Christian empire. Canadian Titanic director James Cameron and filmmaker archeologist Simcha Jacobovici have set to prove that it once held the remains of Jesus of Nazareth and his family. The evidence and interpretations of the artifacts will be presented in a documentary “The Lost Tomb of Jesus” on the Discovery Channel March 4th on the Discovery Channel at 9 p.m. ET/PT. According to a Discovery Channel press release, “scientific evidence, including DNA analysis conducted at one of the world’s foremost molecular genetics laboratories, as well as studies by leading scholars, suggests a 2,000-year-old Jerusalem tomb could have once held the remains of Jesus of Nazareth and his family. The findings also suggest that Jesus and Mary Magdalene might have produced a son named Judah.”The tomb was unearthed for the third time in 1980 as construction crews blasted for new apartments in the town of Talpiot, a suburb south of Jerusalem.

I have no idea how the DNA analysis will support the claims of the documentary, but this will certainly be interesting, since it is the first, as far as I know, DNA analysis on ancient human remains from the region.

Cinemablend makes plain why DNA analysis is irrelevant for the authors' thesis.

Except the whole thing seems kind of pointless. DNA comparison only works if you have something to compare the bones to. Last I checked, no one had a Jesus hair follicle in their bathroom hair brush. Sure, someone might claim to have DNA that definitely belonged to the Christ, but there’s no way to prove it. And without absolutely proof positive Jesus DNA to compare those bones to, I don’t see how Cameron can prove anything.

I suspect that the DNA evidence could at most establish a genetic relationship between the individuals buried in the tomb, something which is not surprising, but does not connect the tomb to a particular person.

More interesting would be the correlation of the ancient DNA with types of DNA we suspect may have been present in ancient Israelites, but once again this would not tie the remains with a particular person.

The Discovery Channel article has more information.

The human remains were analyzed by Carney Matheson, a scientist at the Paleo-DNA Laboratory at Lakehead University in Ontario, Canada. Mitochondrial DNA examination determined the individual in the Jesus ossuary and the person in the ossuary linked to Mary Magdalene were not related.

Since tombs normally contain either blood relations or spouses, Jacobovici and his team suggest it is possible Jesus and Mary Magdalene were a couple. "Judah," whom they indicate may have been their son, could have been the "lad" described in the Gospel of John as sleeping in Jesus' lap at the Last Supper.

And more interestingly:

But Andrey Feuerverger, professor of statistics and mathematics at the University of Toronto, recently conducted a study addressing the probabilities that will soon be published in a leading statistical journal.

Feuerverger multiplied the instances that each name appeared during the tomb's time period with the instances of every other name. He initially found "Jesus Son of Joseph" appeared once out of 190 times, Mariamne appeared once out of 160 times and so on.

To be conservative, he next divided the resulting numbers by 25 percent, a statistical standard, and further divided the results by 1,000 to attempt to account for all tombs — even those that have not been uncovered — that could have existed in first century Jerusalem.

The study concludes that the odds are at least 600 to 1 in favor of the Talpiot Tomb being the Jesus Family Tomb. In other words, the conclusion works 599 times out of 600.

I suspect that this whole deal will inspire a new Da Vinci Code-style controversy. Unfortunately though, according to the Da Vinci Code Jesus and Mary Magdalene had a daughter and not a son, so it seems that the two theories are incompatible with each other.

In any case, it's nice to see a really interdisciplinary approach being applied to a concrete historical question, and I would bet that whatever the final scientific verdict, we'll soon see Mary mtDNA tests coming to market.

Y chromosomes of Kalmyks

Forensic Sci Int. 2007 Feb 19; [Epub ahead of print]

Y-chromosomal STR haplotypes in Kalmyk population samples.

Roewer L, Kruger C, Willuweit S, Nagy M, Rodig H, Kokshunova L, Rothamel T, Kravchenko S, Jobling MA, Stoneking M, Nasidze I.

Seventeen Y-chromosomal short tandem repeats (STRs), DYS19, DYS389I, DYS389II, DYS390, DYS391, DYS392, DYS393, DYS385ab, DYS437, DYS438, DYS439, GATA-H4, DYS448, DYS456, DYS458, DYS635 were typed in DNA samples from the Kalmyk population (n=99). The population is characterized by a high proportion of duplicated DYS19 alleles and deletions of the locus DYS448 on the background of the Central Asian haplogroup C*. AMOVA analysis reveals a close vicinity to Mongolian and Kazakh populations and large genetic distance to geographical neighbours from Russia, Ukraine and the Caucasus.

Link

More on origin of Gagauz

Journal of Human Genetics (online early)

Population history of the Dniester–Carpathians: evidence from Alu markers

Alexander Varzari et al.

The area between the Dniester and the eastern Carpathian mountain range is at a geographical crossroads between eastern Europe and the Balkans. Little is known about the genetics of the population of this region. We performed an analysis of 12 binary autosomal markers in samples from six Dniester–Carpathian populations: two Moldavian, one Romanian, one Ukrainian and two Gagauz populations. The results were compared with gene frequency data from culturally and linguistically related populations from Southeast Europe and Central Asia. Small genetic differences were found among southeastern European populations (in particular those of the Dniester–Carpathian region). The observed homogeneity suggests either a very recent common ancestry of all southeastern European populations or strong gene flow between them. Despite this low level of differentiation, tree reconstruction and principle component analyses allowed a distinction between Balkan–Carpathian (Macedonians, Romanians, Moldavians, Ukrainians and Gagauzes) and eastern Mediterranean (Turks, Greeks and Albanians) population groups. The genetic affinities among Dniester–Carpathian and southeastern European populations do not reflect their linguistic relationships. The results indicate that the ethnic and genetic differentiations occurred in these regions to a considerable extent independently of each other. In particular, Gagauzes, a Turkic-speaking population, show closer affinities to their geographical neighbors than to other Turkic populations.

Link

Formation of the ancient Egyptian state

American Journal of Physical Anthropology (online early)

Population continuity or population change: Formation of the ancient Egyptian state

Sonia R. Zakrzewski

Abstract

The origins of the ancient Egyptian state and its formation have received much attention through analysis of mortuary contexts, skeletal material, and trade. Genetic diversity was analyzed by studying craniometric variation within a series of six time-successive Egyptian populations in order to investigate the evidence for migration over the period of the development of social hierarchy and the Egyptian state. Craniometric variation, based upon 16 measurements, was assessed through principal components analysis, discriminant function analysis, and Mahalanobis D2 matrix computation. Spatial and temporal relationships were assessed by Mantel and Partial Mantel tests. The results indicate overall population continuity over the Predynastic and early Dynastic, and high levels of genetic heterogeneity, thereby suggesting that state formation occurred as a mainly indigenous process. Nevertheless, significant differences were found in morphology between both geographically-pooled and cemetery-specific temporal groups, indicating that some migration occurred along the Egyptian Nile Valley over the periods studied.

Link

More evidence for the origin of the Etruscans

The recent articles on Etruscan origins argue in favor of the non-indigenous theory of Etruscan origins.

In the same light, I was looking at the other recent paper on Y chromosome variation in Italy, and I was struck by the elevated frequency (7%) of J*(xJ2) in Central Tuscany. J*(xJ2) occurs at higher frequencies in the Near East than in Europe. For example, in Cinnioglu's study of Anatolian Y chromosomes it occurred at a frequency of around 9%, while the frequency in Greece (pdf) is 2%.

The fact that J*(xJ2) reaches its Italian maximum in Central Tuscany, approaching the Anatolian figure, and being higher than that of Greece is consistent with the emerging consensus. Let's hope that Y chromosome analysis of Etruscan remains will be feasible to directly test for the presence of J*(xJ2) in them.

PS: Interestingly, Sicily and Cyprus also show an elevated frequency of J*(xJ2) (pdf). The Phoenician presence or other historical events could explain this, but as far as I know (?) there is no documented substantial presence of Phoenicians in Tuscany, making the alternative Anatolian origin more likely.

Fitness has fallen since the days of Ancient Greece (?)

I think that a more likely explanation may be that our modern reconstructions of a trireme as well as the way the ship is used are not really as good as they can be. It should be remembered that the trireme reconstruction is based primarily on literary and artistic evidence and a lot of guesswork. Still, this is an interesting piece of work. Also, the ancient literary accounts giving a measure of distance/time are not really exact, and it should also be remembered that the nautical feats that were recorded were exceptional when triremes had to cover distances in a hurry, and do not represent the average performance of the ancient sailors.

Fitness Has Fallen Since The Days Of Ancient Greece

We may not be as fit as the people of ancient Athens, despite all that modern diet and training can provide, according to research by University of Leeds (UK) exercise physiologist, Dr Harry Rossiter.

Dr Rossiter measured the metabolic rates of modern athletes rowing a reconstruction of an Athenian trireme, a 37m long warship powered by 170 rowers seated in three tiers. Using portable metabolic analysers, he measured the energy consumption of a sample of the athletes powering the ship over a range of different speeds to estimate the efficiency of the human engine of the warship. The research is published in New Scientist .

By comparing these findings to classical texts that record details of their endurance, he realised that the rowers of ancient Athens -- around 500BC -- would had to have been highly elite athletes, even by modern day standards.

Says Dr Rossiter: "Ancient Athens had up to 200 triremes at any one time, and with 170 rowers in each ship, the rowers were clearly not a small elite. Yet this large group, it seems, would match up well with the best of modern athletes. Either ancient Athenians had a more efficient way of rowing the trireme or they would have to be an extremely fit group. Our data raise the interesting notion that these ancient athletes were genetically better adapted to endurance exercise than we are today."

Dr Rossiter worked closely with Professor Boris Rankov, Professor of Classics at Royal Holloway, University of London to interpret the details of the endurance of the ancient rowers from classical texts. Many of these texts were originally collected and used to estimate sustainable ship speeds in The Athenian Trireme (CUP, 2rd edition 2000), which Professor Rankov co-authored.

For example, one account talks of the Athenians quelling a revolt in Mytilene on the island of Lesbos in the eastern Aegean. The Athenian assembly ordered all Mytiline's men to death, and despatched a trireme to carry out this command. The next day, the assembly relented and sent a second trireme to halt the massacre. According to the records of Thucydides, this second trireme would have made the journey in about 24 hours, rowing in shifts and eating while they rowed, so the ship could travel non-stop.

Says Dr Rossiter: "From these details we can estimate the average sustainable ship speeds. Then, using the reconstruction we measured the metabolic demands of the human engine required to sustain these speeds. If the historians are correct, we would struggle to find enough people at that level of fitness today to power the ships at those speeds."

Triremes were a huge technological advance, allowing Athens to dominate the seas. They had a strong keel, taken forward into a huge spike covered in bronze plates, which meant they could ram and hole enemy ships -- a new technique in naval warfare. To ensure sufficient impact to cause damage, the triremes had to reach great speeds -- so were designed with more than three times more rowers than earlier warships. By placing the rowers on three tiers, the ship could remain a manoeuvrable length and weight.

The trireme used in Dr Rossiter's research, Olympias, was built in the 1980s and was used to carry the Olympic flame to Piraeus, the port near Athens, at the start of the last Olympic Games. It is now housed in a museum in Piraeus.

Greek warriors' tombs from the Kerameikos

The excavation of the Kerameikos would be a milestone in the archaeology of Athens

Graves of warriors open to the public

Athens - Ancient Greek graves holding the remains of warriors slain in the Peloponnesian War, one of antiquity's deadliest conflicts, will soon be accessible to visitors in Athens, an archaeologist said on Wednesday.

"We have the remains of Athenian warriors of the Peloponnesian War carried there from battlefield funeral pyres," supervising archaeologist Haris Stoupa told reporters.

"We're not sure of the exact battle as we were not fortunate enough to find engravings," she added.

Discovered in the Athens district of Kerameikos in 1997, the site is part of a one-kilometre-wide cemetery dedicated to Athenian warriors and prominent citizens that still lies mostly buried under modern buildings.

The cemetery was created shortly after the Battle of Marathon against the Persians in 480 BC and remained in use until the Roman Wars against Carthage, Stoupa said.

According to 2nd-century Greek chronicler Pausanias, among heroes buried there is Pericles, leader of Athens during the city-state's golden era that saw the building of the Parthenon.

Archaeologists will place a protective canopy over the site to enable visitors to see into the graves, Stoupa said.

The project will be completed in 2008.

Pitting two superpowers of the era - democratic Athens and oligarchic Sparta - against one another, the Peloponnesian War raged on and off for nearly 30 years (431-404 BC) across Greece,
with related conflicts in Asia Minor and Sicily.

It was a disaster for Athens, and established Sparta as the dominant power in ancient Greece.