Posted on 03/15/2015 8:06:15 AM PDT by SunkenCiv
A team of anthropology researchers has found significant differences in facial features between all seven pre-Columbian peoples they evaluated from what is now Peru -- disproving a longstanding perception that these groups were physically homogenous. The finding may lead scholars to revisit any hypotheses about human migration patterns that rested on the idea that there was little skeletal variation in pre-Columbian South America.
Skeletal variation is a prominent area of research in New World bioarchaeology, because it can help us understand the origins and migration patterns of various pre-Columbian groups through the Americas...
The recently-published findings may affect a lot of hypotheses regarding New World anthropology. For decades, research on pre-Columbian peoples used one sample of 110 individuals to represent the skull variation -- including the facial features -- of all South American peoples. But that representative sample consisted solely of individuals from the Yauyos people -- a civilization that existed in the central Peruvian highlands.
"And our work shows that the Yauyos had facial features that were very different even from other peoples in the same region," Ross says. "This raises questions about any hypothesis that rests in part on the use of the Yauyos sample as being representative of all South America."
The researchers evaluated facial measurements of 507 skulls from seven different groups that have been clearly defined by archaeological evidence: the Yauyos, Ancon, Cajamarca, Jahuay, Makatampu, Malabrigo, and Pacatnamu peoples. These societies existed at various points between A.D. 1 and A.D. 1470.
Ross collected facial measurements of the Ancon, Cajamarca, and Makatampu remains. John Verano, an anthropologist at Tulane, collected measurements of the Jahuay, Malabrigo, and Pacatnamu remains. For the Yauyos, the researchers used measurements made by W.W. Howells in 1973.
The researchers found that each of these groups displayed distinct facial characteristics.
(Excerpt) Read more at eurekalert.org ...
Forensic anthropologist Ann Ross is pictured in her lab at NC State University. [Credit: North Carolina State University]
Forensic anthropology lab technician Kristen Chew works with a human skull in the Ross Lab at NC State University. [Credit: North Carolina State University]
“The Yauyos people”
Yep. I married into that group. My first wife’s brothers were Yauyos. They worshipped skunks. Fun at parties, though.
Nice faces.
On an unrelated note, I’m related to some yo-yos.
I have conducted similar studies throughout my life time, however they were summarized more or less by a "hot or not" list.
; )
a.k.a. Hit it or Quit it.
The other look like ancient Mayans. Narrow face, almost Roman noses.
Other Indians in the region have equally different characteristics, that are uniform in their group, but very different from other peoples.
Wow, significant facial variation among white-lady anthropology researchers at NC State. Who’d’a thunkit?
" The oldest human remains found in the Americas were recently "discovered" in the storeroom of Mexico's National Museum of Anthropology. Found in central Mexico in 1959, the five skulls were radiocarbon dated by a team of researchers from the United Kingdom and Mexico and found to be 13,000 years old. They pre-date the Clovis culture by a couple thousand years, adding to the growing evidence against the Clovis-first model for the first peopling of the Americas.
Of additional significance is the shape of the skulls, which are described as long and narrow, very unlike those of modern Native Americans.
Lol!
Enjoyed that side-trail for the last half an hour. Thanks for the post!
I got yer long and narrow right here:
Many times when I look at ancient Egyptian statuary, the people represented resemble no people on Earth to me, as much as they resemble some South American Indians.
(In my experience, this does not go over well with folks who believe that the ancient Egyptians were black Africans, and tell me that we just don’t realize this because invaders defaced the features of the statues from racist motives...)
But many of the statues DO look like South American Indians.
(I wonder which way the boats sailed...:-)
-JT
The Yo-Yo's were aliens.
;’)
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