Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
BOX 5.1
(
cont'd)
people. The existing diversity is therefore
intrinsic. To illustrate this further, both
Spradley and coworkers (2008) and Hurst
(2012) have demonstrated that variability (in
terms of skeletal features) in the Hispanic
group is higher than was once thought.
Workers such as
Ross et al. (2004)
and
Spradley et al. (2008)
have noted the
complexity of population history in Latin
America leading to phenotypic heteroge-
neity. Each country in Latin America has its
own particular history that in general began
with indigenous groups, later conquest by
Europeans, in several cases, importation of
enslaved Africans, and later immigation of
people from Europe and/or Asia. The extent
to which these three latter events and their
consequences (i.e., war, disease) affected
each country's population history varies.
Consequently, the majority of people in Latin
America who speak Spanish as their native
language do so as a result of European
conquest but may ancestrally be European,
African,
to assess ancestry. As with many other South
American countries, Colombia has a hetero-
geneous population as a result of European
conquest, importation of enslaved Africans,
and the resultant mating with the indigenous
people. As ancestry has never been system-
atically studied in Colombia, L´pez et al.
(2012) used two modern samples of skeletons
from different parts of the country (Bogot
´
and Medell
´
n) to look at heterogeneity. Using
craniometric interlandmark distances, bio-
logical distance plots revealed that the
grouped Colombian data (Bogot
´
and
Medell
´
n) fell closest to the Hispanic group
and far from the Guatemalan group from the
Forensic Databank (FDB). However, when
the Bogot
´
and Medell
´
n samples were
separated, Medell´n fell closest to the FDB
European-American group with Bogot´
remaining close to the FDB Hispanics (
L´pez
et al., 2012
). This only begins to illustrate the
heterogeneity within one country alone and
underscores the need for more work in this
area.
As the Hispanic population continues to
grow in the United States, we predict that
this issue will increasingly become a hot
topic for research in forensic anthropology.
We strongly suggest that students contem-
plating an ancestry project consider research
on Hispanic populations and in particular
travel to Latin American countries for data
collection and analysis on modern samples.
indigenous, or a mixture of
the
three.
Therefore, Spradley et al. (2008) and
Ross
et al. (2004)
both emphasized the need for
population-specific standards with the latter
authors especially stressing the necessity of
regional studies to build metric and
nonmetric trait information for Hispanics. As
a brief example of such an attempt, L
´
pez
and colleagues (2012) recently presented
results from a preliminary study in Colombia
FINAL THOUGHTS: THE FUTURE OF RESEARCH IN ANCESTRY
ESTIMATION AND HUMAN VARIATION
To conclude, it seems that we have barely revealed the tip of the iceberg when it
comes to the old race concept, modern thought on human variation, and ancestry
