First, we represent God functionally through activities such as ruling over creation (Gen 1:28) and acting out similar capacities.

Second, we represent God relationally through community interaction. According to Christos Yannaras "What constitutes man as an hypostasis (person), what gives him an ego and identity is his relationship with God...[The One] who calls into existence what does not exist (Rom. 4:17), establishing and founding the personal otherness of man. The potential of man, then, is to be opposed to the "other" in relationship and thus know himself as a distinct entity. A man can only know that he exists because he can turn his face toward the other. Indeed the word "prosopon" which is the greek word for face or person communicates this truth. It derives from the prefix "pros" (to, toward) and "opos" (look, eye, or face). Man is therefore a personal created nature in relationship to God and to other created things. The personal existence in relationship to the "other", rather, the fact of being (in the active sense) a human person is one aspect of what is often referred to as the image of God.

Third, humans can represent God in purpose by being conformed into the full and perfect Image of God- Jesus Christ (Col 3:10; 2 Cor 4:4; Col 1:15; Rom 8:29; 1 Cor 15:49; 2 Cor 3:18).

Finally, humans are similar to God having capacities such as talking, choosing, and thinking. The image of God in man is thus understood primarily in substantive terms. According to theologian Millard Erickson, "the image is something in the very nature of humans, in the way in which they were made. It refers to something a human "is" rather than something a human "has" or "does." By virtue of being human, one is in the image of God." If man was created as a personal existence in God's image, then he has the capacity for personality, e.g. relationship, thinking and reflecting, and willing freely.

More on humanity to come in future posts- Lord willing!

AAA Awarded Planning Grant to Examine Future of Scholarly Journals

The American Anthropological Association (AAA) is pleased to announce today that it has been awarded a $50,000 grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to conduct preliminary research on the economic issues faced by scholarly society publishers in the humanities and social sciences as consequence of the demand for open access to their peer reviewed journals.

The grant, will provide support for an examination of the publishing programs of  nine social science and humanities societies and the development of an information base from which publishing model options might be derived to assure societies of the ability to sustain their publishing programs in an open access environment.

Work on the effort will begin immediately, with a final report expected to be released in the first quarter of 2009.

“This study is another step in AAA’s effort to better understand the conditions under which the future of our journal publishing program must operate, to learn from the experiences of other social science and humanities journal publishers and to carefully examine the issues, opportunities and problems presented by open access,” AAA Executive Director Bill Davis said in a statement released today.

AAA Director of Publishing Oona Schmid commented today, “Current open access models were developed within the Scientific, Technical, and Medical publishing communities. However, scholarly publishing in the social sciences and in the humanities differs in substantial ways. This study is our first step in understanding these differences, in order to locate a model that supports our discipline fully.”

AAA is joined in this effort by the Modern Language Association, the American Sociological Association, the American Historical Association, the American Economic Association, the National Communication Association, the American Statistical Association, the Political Science Association and the American Academy of Religion, under the auspices of the National Humanities Alliance Task Force on Open Access and Scholarly Communication.

This is probably closer the appearance of the Southern Nubians, as studies of a Northern Nubian cemetery (Semna South) shows about 60% Eurasian ancestry, which makes sense as modern day Egypt's Southern border area shows at about 70% Eurasian.

 A recent study of the Sudan suggests 40% Eurasian from the Y chromosome, although it's probably less overall, so the percentage of Eurasian ancestry in these people probably dropped off pretty quickly as they moved South.

I'm assuming it's the Southern Nubian 'type' depicted as a kind of understandable stereotype in the artwork, as a Northern Nubian probably didn't look definably different to a Southern Egyptian, and would not be  recognisable as a Nubian if represented exactly in the artwork.

Two Nubians (ambassadors I think).  Nubian archers, From the tomb of Mesehti, a prince from the region of Assiut (Middle Dynasty, about 2000 BC).

Nubian slaves, the Great Temple, Abu Simbel, Egypt.

For comparison, some Southern Egyptians (Luxor area) , Northern Nubians (present day Egypt) and Southern Nubians (Sudan).

Children from Luxor.

Nubian Wedding (Aswan).

Modern Sudanese.

You see what I mean about Nubians and Southern Egyptians not looking noticeably different.

Getting a new apartment can be fun, unfortunately our entry level salaries can put a damper on the situation. 60 dollar pillow? Yeah I'll stick with Mom's old ones. 1000 dollar tv? I'd rather watch Hulu on my computer. The good news is there are lots of ways to furnish and decorate your apartment on a limited budget. I recently moved into a new apartment and found these resources to be very useful:

EQ3: This is a really fun store for nearly everything for your home. The company aims at providing alternative furnishings for young people. Check out the Value Price section.

Ikea: If you can brave it through Ikea, you will find some great finds. I just got a nice modern lamp for my room for 6 dollars, and a fun jewelry holder for 5. For the larger items, be prepared to do lots of building, but for the price its well worth it.

CB2: This is a hip new affordable store by Crate and Barrel. It has modern and fun kitchenware, furniture, bedding and decor. (Just opened one up in San Fran!) Check out their web site- I recommend the sale section.

West Elm: This is a great place to find wall decor, furniture and bedding at affordable prices. (From the founders of Williams-Sonoma and Pottery Barn)

allposters.com. If you are like me and love art but don't have thousands to spend, this is a great source. They always have discounts and sales in addition to their already low prices.

20x200 One of my all-time favorite sites which offers new prints by emerging artists every Tuesday and Wed. You can purchase the small prints for 20 dollars. 

If you are looking for electronics, ask your local electronics store if they have any open-box deals. These are either returned or display items that are on sale for as much as half off to customers. I got a great new tv this way for really cheap! Check out Best Buy or Circuit City, but be prepared to check in everyday for updates. 

Also, don't let high prices scare you away for shopping from your favorite stores- just go straight to the sale section. Stores like Anthropology and Urban Outfitters have fun stuff for your home that can be up to 75% off. I found some beautiful plates from Anthro the other day for 1.99 each.

Cassirer, like a lot of folks, wants to position mythic thought as a pseudo-rationality, the lineaments from which proper rationality develops.  Mythology serves as a sort of embryology, a snapshot of an 'early' moment in the history of consciousness. 

I'm not buying that.  Quite the opposite, I want to try and distinguish a domain for myth that does not force it into a teleological-progressivist account, a past that must just be left behind like infancy.  This is an effort to give spiritual experience it's due, from the inside as it were.

The notion of myth as social and the notion of myth as expressive form the root of this approach.  They take for granted what is most essential in properly mythico-religious experience, namely the reality of the divine.  In other words, myth is itself a response to something that is experienced as exceeding the personal ego.

Moreover, it's a response aimed at joining the experience to the world in which the experiencing consciousness exists, one that is fundamentally rooted in sociality and communication.  The effort to find a name for the divine takes up the most rudimentary features of the social, a means of address, while the effort to give expression to the divine, with its occasional ambiguity and seeming contradictions, is an effort to give voice to some thing that lies 'beyond' the social world in which it is addressed.

This suggests one way to consider the very common trope in mythic stories that detail how divine figures violate the norms of their culture.  The violation need not be read as an intentional choice on the part of the figure, but as one way to express how the mythic figure lies outside the society from the start, and must be approached with that in mind.

...pornography did breach the dike that separated a marginal, adult, private pursuit from the mainstream public arena. The whole world, post-Internet, did become pornographized. Young men and women are indeed being taught what sex is, how it looks, what its etiquette and expectations are, by pornographic training—and this is having a huge effect on how they interact.

But the effect is not making men into raving beasts. On the contrary: The onslaught of porn is responsible for deadening male libido in relation to real women, and leading men to see fewer and fewer women as “porn-worthy.” Far from having to fend off porn-crazed young men, young women are worrying that as mere flesh and blood, they can scarcely get, let alone hold, their attention.

Here is what young women tell me on college campuses when the subject comes up: They can’t compete, and they know it. For how can a real woman—with pores and her own breasts and even sexual needs of her own (let alone with speech that goes beyond “More, more, you big stud!”)—possibly compete with a cybervision of perfection, downloadable and extinguishable at will, who comes, so to speak, utterly submissive and tailored to the consumer’s least specification?

For most of human history, erotic images have been reflections of, or celebrations of, or substitutes for, real naked women. For the first time in human history, the images’ power and allure have supplanted that of real naked women. Today, real naked women are just bad porn.

For two decades, I have watched young women experience the continual “mission creep” of how pornography—and now Internet pornography—has lowered their sense of their own sexual value and their actual sexual value...

The porn loop is de rigueur, no longer outside the pale; starlets in tabloids boast of learning to strip from professionals; the “cool girls” go with guys to the strip clubs, and even ask for lap dances; college girls are expected to tease guys at keg parties with lesbian kisses à la Britney and Madonna.

But does all this sexual imagery in the air mean that sex has been liberated—or is it the case that the relationship between the multi-billion-dollar porn industry, compulsiveness, and sexual appetite has become like the relationship between agribusiness, processed foods, supersize portions, and obesity? If your appetite is stimulated and fed by poor-quality material, it takes more junk to fill you up. People are not closer because of porn but further apart; people are not more turned on in their daily lives but less so...

The young women who talk to me on campuses about the effect of pornography on their intimate lives speak of feeling that they can never measure up, that they can never ask for what they want; and that if they do not offer what porn offers, they cannot expect to hold a guy. The young men talk about what it is like to grow up learning about sex from porn, and how it is not helpful to them in trying to figure out how to be with a real woman. Mostly, when I ask about loneliness, a deep, sad silence descends on audiences of young men and young women alike. They know they are lonely together, even when conjoined, and that this imagery is a big part of that loneliness. What they don’t know is how to get out, how to find each other again erotically, face-to-face.

... pornography is compulsive, but she was wrong in thinking it would make men more rapacious. A whole generation of men are less able to connect erotically to women—and ultimately less libidinous.

The reason to turn off the porn might become, to thoughtful people, not a moral one but, in a way, a physical- and emotional-health one; you might want to rethink your constant access to porn in the same way that, if you want to be an athlete, you rethink your smoking. The evidence is in: Greater supply of the stimulant equals diminished capacity...

Other cultures know this. I am not advocating a return to the days of hiding female sexuality, but I am noting that the power and charge of sex are maintained when there is some sacredness to it, when it is not on tap all the time. In many more traditional cultures, it is not prudery that leads them to discourage men from looking at pornography. It is, rather, because these cultures understand male sexuality and what it takes to keep men and women turned on to one another over time—to help men, in particular, to, as the Old Testament puts it, “rejoice with the wife of thy youth; let her breasts satisfy thee at all times.” These cultures urge men not to look at porn because they know that a powerful erotic bond between parents is a key element of a strong family.

And feminists have misunderstood many of these prohibitions.

Naomi Wolf

My Notes:

Marriages are ending faster than you can say: go 'cause people have the illusion that they have better options all around. And my generation considers online women and men better alternatives than the real deals.

I am frightened.

We have been conducting an extensive footnoted annotated indexed & complicated study of the caucasian culture hereafter to be referred to as the cauks for ease in translation.

The most important religious ritual, one central to all groups, is the mixing of feces & urine with water. This rite occurs regularly on a daily basis & seems to be a cornerstone of the culture's belief system. The urns for this purpose are commonly porcelain, of various hues, although white is the most frequently used. The very wealthy rulers have receptacles of carved onyx or malachite with gold-plated fixtures. We have been unable to determine what prayers are said during this ritual because of its solitary nature & the fact that the door to the prayer room is always shut.

The main function of the majority of non-city dwellers is the production of an object called a lawn. Numerous tools for the cultivation of this lawn are sold in the marketplaces. It appears also to have a sacred character, as no activity occurs on it & keeping it short green & square is a constant activity.

The main diet of the culture is available from pushbutton machines or orange plastic small markets & was found by our researchers to be completely inedible. It is truly amazing what the human animal can subsist on.

Another prominent feature of the cauks is the construction of huge monuments built in clusters in the villages. These are not living quarters but are used about five days of the week for a ritual involving papers which appear to be sacred, given the life or death quality with which they are handled. The papers are passed about, often with consternation & eventually cast away when the spell is complete.

The mechanisms for healing disease appear to our eyes to be woefully complex & at the same time, inadequate. People who are seriously ill are quarantined in jails of pale green or white & often used to feed machines which appear to run on human blood.

Children who are born deformed in any way are usually confined to jails built for the purpose. The elderly are also jailed, there being no value system of respect for them. Those passing through transitions are called "crazy" & also jailed. animals from distant lands again are jailed. In fact, there is some discussion of an alternative theory of central religious belief--that the actual spiritual purpose of the culture, is to jail as much as possible. Extensive use of fences is the key argument for this theory.

Our data is as yet incomplete. We hope by 1992 to have a more comprehensive overview, at which time a traveling exhibition of artifacts (including exhumed bodies to illustrate their burial practices) will tour for the education of all. Their attitude toward all non-cauk peoples is extremely hostile & violent. Many of our researchers have been massacred & yet, in the interests of science, we persevere.

Proceeding apace, Cassirer proceeds to discuss a notion propounded by Max Müller, with the intent of discarding it.  Here is what he quotes from Müller's "The Philosophy of Religion":

Mythology is inevitable, it is natural, it is an inherent necessity of language, if we recognize in language the outward form and manifestation of thought; it is in fact the dark shadow which language throws upon thought, and which can never disappear till language becomes entirely commensurate with thought, which it never will.—quoted in Cassirer, Language and Myth (5)

I want to focus on Müller's distinctions just a moment.  First, there is thought, which Müller implies is equal to truth.  Second, there is language, which presumably expresses the thought (and so truth) imperfectly, creating distortions which are explicitly identical to myth. 

We don't have a clear sense from this exactly what composes this distortion, but we can guess.  Words, by their nature, are not terribly unitary.  They contain associations and meanings that are not identical to each other.  When you layer in homonyms, a 'word' ends up being a not-so-precise thing.  It's why we can open up a dictionary and find three or four definitions for a word and what lays the groundwork for double-entendres. 

It's also why we can use a word for rhetorical effect: when a liberal commentator uses the phrase 'Mission Accomplished' in reference to Bush's term, they are not appealing to the definitions of those words, but to the associations (the claim of victory followed by protracted military action after victory) to drive home a point.

In Müller's usage, then, we find both these applications falling under the mythic power of language.  Looked at in this way, though, the 'shadow' of language isn't just about falsehood and distortion.  It's about evoking a more complex sentiment, something with emotional depth that is better expressed by the ambiguity of the language being used. 

While some ambiguity in language may just be the result of ignorance, some ambiguity reflects a genuine complexity in the thought it expresses.  While we can parse out the meanings of those complex thoughts, that parsing often separates out what is fused in the thought in a way that ambiguous-mythic thought does not.

I have spent some time with Müller because I want to point out how his idea can be deepened without having to dramatically change the structure of his observation.  Müller's error lies not in making a distinction between language and thought, but in presuming that ambiguity in language reflects a disconnect between thought and language, when on occasion it may reflect a tight relationship between the two.

Moreover, examining Müller's idea more closely provides us with the tools to examine how problematic Cassirer's answer to Müller becomes.  While Müller focuses on the distinction between a thought and language, Cassirer criticizes him for "naive realism which regards the reality of objects as something directly and unequivocally given" (6).  Müller may or may not develop his ideas in this direction, but that direction is not a necessary conclusion of his ideas.

Quite the opposite, in focusing on 'thought' rather than 'objects,' Müller has already stepped beyond naive realism toward a rough phenomenology of myth, though poorly executed.  It is not a question of language and reality but of language and its relationship to the thoughts (affective and conceptual) that underlie them.

Cassirer's approach, however, remains problematic.  He talks about

what Kant calls his "Copernican Revolution." Instead of measuring the content, meaning, and truth of intellectual forms by something extraneous...we must find in these forms themselves the measure and criterion for their truth and intrinsic meaning....Thus the special symbolic forms are not imitations, but organs of reality, since it is solely by their agency that anything real becomes an object for intellectual apprehension. (8)

The problems here are manifold.  First and foremost, though, he sustains the very difference he is supposedly criticizing.  He talks as if there is a 'real' that 'becomes an object' for consideration, but does so only under the condition that is utterly determined by the symbolic system. 

It's of course a lot easier to deal with language and expression if there is no difference between the expression and what it expresses.  However, that seems deeply disingenuous.  Even in our everyday experience, we encounter a divergence between the intent we are trying to express and its mode of expression. 

Arguably, it's one of the better reasons to use language, for in talking, we find we don't always understand things as clearly as we thought, we find a gap between our words and the feelings and ideas we have in our mind.  Even now, as I write this, I find myself making tiny changes, so that the language better reflects the ideas going on in my head.

Cassirer does highlight, though, how language itself can have agency and influence expression.  Language is not passive, it shapes the objects we think about.  It gives them form, even if it is not the sole occasion for us to become aware of the object.  The words we use shape ow we understand that to which they refer.

Müller does overstate the importance of thought as the active force that language can only distort, but Cassirer overstates the importance of language, symbolic activity, in shaping expression.  Language and thought exist together, on the 'same' level, interacting and influencing each other. 

Viewed this way, the process of giving voice to thought is a craft and art.  It demands a sense of balance and style with an eye to an underlying goal, be it obfuscation or illumination, persuasion or confusion.

This is all a bit abstract, but let me bring it down more sharply: in myth (construed here in its everyday, religious story sense) we encounter a consciousness struggling to make sense of an experience, a thought, in language.  We do not need to do away with the experience of the divine but place it in its preperly numinous context, where it is difficult to express and relay, where ambiguity in expression becomes a way to amplify the words, draw together their fullness of association and denotation to emphasize the fullness of the divine.

With its mission being to promote “good, clean and fair food” (slowfood.com) I find it hard to understand why it has not achieved a greater level or popularity since it was founded almost 20 years ago. Running a quick search in IBSS for “slow food” I got a selection of 17 results (10 of which had abstracts). I can fully understand why Slow Food (hereafter referred to as SF) endeavours to broaden the appeal of typical local produce ("The practical aesthetics of traditional cuisines: slow food in Tuscany". Miele, Mara and Murdoch, Jonathan. Sociologia ruralis, 42:4, 2002). I sometimes find it depressing to see giant flavourless strawberries and the likes on supermarket shelves all year round. At the same time I would mourn the loss of choice available to us at present. We need to find a happy medium.

I wholly agree that it is important to make an effort to buy local seasonal products but the reality is that most of us still need to buy discount supermarket goods in order to survive the credit crunch. I am passionate about food, with a chef for a father, my family tend to be somewhat food obsessed. The idea of SF really strikes a chord with me ("Out of time: fast subjects and slow living". Parkins, Wendy, Time & Society, 13:2-3, 2004) but at £35 annual membership I do not feel I can justify becoming a member.

As for eating out, I love the idea of dining in a restaurant that ethically sources its menu ingredients. My father once ran a restaurant in the 1970s in which he used only fresh, local produce. Absolutely nothing from a tin! It makes my mouth water at the thought of it. Sadly, it proved too costly and as a result not financially viable. The SF restaurant, while a clever marketing angle, is simply a modern luxury I cannot afford (Reverse psychology marketing: the death of traditional marketing and the rise of the new 'pull' game. Sinha, Indrajit and Foscht, Thomas, Palgrave MacMillan, 2007). It ranks up there with organic food markets as a way of life I long for, but know I cannot be a part of ("Sensing Cittàslow: slow living and the constitution of the sensory city". Pink, Sarah, Senses and Society, 2:1, 2007).

An article in Food, Culture & Society (8:2, 2005) rang all too true stating that, 'Slow Food's efforts to develop an ethics of taste are, to some extent, undermined by its failure to adequately challenge its own elitism and privilege' ("The pleasure of diversity in slow food's ethics of taste". Donati, Kelly). Sadly, as with many farmers’ markets, it feels as though the SF community is out of my price range. For now, at least, I shall have to make do with my terrace herb garden. I would far rather be a part of an independent SF movement, the one in my own home, a.k.a. the credit munch.

Jeff Halper is an American-born Israeli Professor of Anthropology as well as a peace and human rights activist for over three decades. In 1997, he co-founded the Israeli Committee Against Home Demolitions (ICAHD), and as its Coordinating Director "organized and led nonviolent direct action and civil disobedience against Israel's occupation policies and authorities."

ICAHD's mission is now expanded well beyond home demolitions. It helps rebuild them and resists "land expropriation, settlement expansion, by-pass road construction, policies of 'closure' and 'separation," and much more. Its aim is simple, yet hard to achieve - to end decades of Israeli-Palestinian conflict equitably and return the region to peace. For his work, Halper was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006.

Besides his full-time work, he writes many articles, position papers, and authored several books. His latest and subject of this review is An Israeli in Palestine: Resisting Dispossession, Redeeming Israel. Israeli-based journalist Jonathan Cook (jkcook.net) authored two insightful books on the conflict that are highly recommended. Information can be found on his web site and much more. He calls Halper's book "one of the most insightful analyses of the Occupation I've read. His voice cries out to be heard" on the region's longest and most intractable conflict.

Halper is a "critical insider" and insightful commentator of events on the ground that he witnesses first hand. This review covers his analysis in-depth - in two parts for easier reading. It exposes Israeli repression and proposes remedial solutions. It provides another invaluable resource on the conflict's cause, history, why it continues, and a just and equitable resolution.

full article: www.insight-info.com

Opportunities for language training are excellent, and students may include study in Lviv as part of their training. Courses in related fields include humanities computing, anthropology, museum studies, and ethnomusicology, along with a wide range of choices in other departments. Our degrees prepare students for a variety of interesting jobs and recent graduates have found employment in academe, in museums and historical preservation facilities, in archives, as creative artists, and in the public sector.

Graduate support is generous and students typically work as teaching assistants and/or research assistants. Research assistantships include database and archival work and thus contribute to training and employability.

For more information, contact Andriy Nahachewsky, Huculak Chair and Centre Director at andriyn@ualberta.ca or Natalie Kononenko, Kule Chair of Ukrainian Ethnography at nataliek@ualberta.ca

Andriy Nahachewsky
Huculak Chair and Centre Director
Kule Folklore Centre
andriyn@ualberta.ca
Email: andriyn@ualberta.ca
Visit the website at http://ukrfolk.ca

East meets West meets acid.

As we look at ways to attract audiences to the museum, there is always the question of how far we should go away from the traditional topics of anthropology and archaeology. This was brought up here as a question about whether we should make the museum like a "theme park" and include topics like "Burt [Bert] and Ernie" or "Batman." Since I'm usually the one who says we should address these popular figures from an anthropological perspective, I thought it would be useful to say why. To me, there is no subject that should be off-limits for anthropology and archaeology. But what we do in our research is hard for many "civilians" to understand. Our job, I believe, is to translate the big questions we always ask in our research—what does it mean to be human, how do people make their way in a fragile or dangerous world, how do people create meaningful lives—into formats that people without academic training can get. I also believe the way we do this is not to force them into our world but to build bridges to theirs,  to connect these questions to what people already know well. This summer, at least 100 million people worldwide shared a story called "The Dark Knight," a Batman myth. Why would we want to ignore that fact? Why wouldn't we want to point out that bat mythology is common throughout the world, that our bat artifacts cover many cultures and times, and that the premise of the entire movie,  how to keep your humanity when faced with chaos and violence, has resonated through human history? Theme park? Actually, yes, because themes are what tie past and present together, what show us that different cultures have something to say to each other. We all have our limits of what we find acceptable topics (I, for example, draw the line at that purple dino, Barney) but perhaps our best hope is to open up the traditions of anthropology and archaeology so they can talk with, rather than just at, today's world.

Mitochondrial DNA sequence analysis in Sicily.

Vona G, Ghiani ME, Calò CM, Vacca L, Memmì M, Varesi L.

Department of Experimental Biology, Section of Anthropological Sciences, University of Cagliari, Monserrato, Italy. This study reports data on the sequences of the first hypervariable segment of a sample of the Sicilian population from Alia (Palermo, Italy). The results show the presence of 32 different haplotypes in the 49 individuals examined. The average number of pairwise nucleotide differences was 4.04, i.e., 1.17% per nucleotide. The distribution of the nucleotide differences matches the theoretical distribution and indicates only one major episode of expansion that occurred between 20,732 and 59,691 years ago, between the Middle Paleolithic and Upper Paleolithic. Compared with the other populations, parameters of the Sicilian sample lie in an intermediate position between the eastern and western Mediterranean populations. This is due to numerous contacts that Sicily has had with the Mediterranean area since prehistoric times. At the same time, the singularity of some of the haplotypes present in the sample studied indicates the persistence of some characteristics caused by genetic drift and isolation that the population has endured in the course of its history.

This shows no African Mt DNA in Sicily, which disagrees with an older study

Mitochondrial DNA polymorphisms in Italy. III. Population data from Sicily: a possible quantitation of maternal African ancestry
Semino et al. (1989)

mtDNA polymorphisms were studied in a sample of 90 individuals of the Sicilian population using six restriction enzymes: HpaI, BamHI, HaeII, MspI, AvaII and HincII. ... Of particular interest is that the HpaI-3/AvaII-3 complex, which is unique to groups of African ancestry, was found in Sicily at a frequency of 4.4%. For the first time an estimate of the amount of gene flow from Blacks to the Sicilian gene pool could be obtained.

Taking the more recent study to be the more accurate (it usually works out that way) the North African admixture in Sicily is about 3% (Y chromosomes at 5-6%), sub Saharan ancestry nil.

Y-chromosome 10 locus short tandem repeat haplotypes in a population sample from Sicily Italy

Link to Full Text

Maria Elena Ghiania, Ignazio Stefano Pirasa, Robert John Mitchellb, Giuseppe Vonaa,*

This study reports the first data on Y-chromosome-specific short tandem repeat (STR) haplotype frequencies, in the population of the island of Sicily (Italy), based on the combination of alleles at the following 10 Y-chromosome loci DYS19, DYS389I, DYS389II, DYS390, DYS391, DYS392, DYS393, DYS437, DYS438, and DYS439. In a total of 117 males, 108 unique haplotypes were observed, with 99 of them being singletons. The 10 locus haplotypes generated a diversity value of 0.9987 and discriminatory power (DP) of 92.30%. The data on the seven of the 10 polymorphisms (DYS19; DYS389I; DYS389II; DYS390; DYS391; DYS392 and DYS393) that have been most studied in worldwide populations were compared with similar data from neighboring Mediterranean populations in order to address the question of shared ancestry, gene flow and population affinities. Overall, results indicate Sicily is closest genetically to the mainland Italian population but also with evidence of a significant African component in the male gene pool. These findings are consistent with those obtained from other genetic markers (autosomal and mitochondrial DNA as well as the classical blood groups) and also with the recorded settlement history (either peaceful or due to invasion) of the island.

What this abstract fails to mention is that the African Y chromsomes are North African, and attributable to the Moorish occupation, and are at a frequency of about 5%.

Furthermore, these five haplotypes are not present in any other Italian population [20–23]. The shared five haplotypes represent 5% of the total Sicilian haplotypes. These African haplotypes most probably were introduced into Sicily sometime between the 7th and 8th century, during the island’s domination by the Arab Empire. An African contribution to the Sicilian gene pool gains support from several lines of evidence.

And

The median joining network used to arrange the Sicilian haplotypes into a phylogeny shows that there are two main clusters. The sharing of haplotypes between North West African and Sicilian populations confirms the contribution from the former population to the island during the Islamic expansion into the Mediterranean basin.

Another Y chromsome study of Sicily found North African DNA at six percent, which is very close.

This is one of the more obscure Conquest-era histories, allegedly written by one of the Conquistadores under Cortes. We've never definitively identified who the author was, but the book seems to be generally accepted as a genuinely early document. The book is an account of the Conquest itself and a concise overview of life in Tenochtitlan at the time, from a recently-arrived European perspective. As usual, such works have to be read carefully, with an awareness of problems of reliability, bias, and cultural misunderstandings/ignorance. With those caveats aside, however, early material like this can still be quite useful.

Go HERE to read Marshall H. Saville's 1917 English translation of the Anonymous Conqueror's Narrative of Some Things of New Spain and of the Great City of Temestitan, México, edited by Alec Christensen and kindly hosted on FAMSI.

I have also updated the First Contact & Conquest Era History page on this site with a permanent link to this work.

Now, if you will excuse me, I'm going to go crash before I face-plant on my keyboard, as I've been awake for almost 24 hours straight now, 13 of which were spent at work... Just had to share this random discovery before catching some sleep.

HLA polymorphism in Bulgarians defined by high-resolution typing methods in comparison with other populations.

Ivanova M, Rozemuller E, Tyufekchiev N, Michailova A, Tilanus M, Naumova E.

Central Laboratory of Clinical Immunology, Medical University, Sofia, Bulgaria.

In the present study we analyzed for the first time HLA class I and class II polymorphisms defined by high-resolution typing methods in the Bulgarian population. Comparisons with other populations of common historical background were performed. Most HLA-A, -B, -DRB alleles and haplotypes observed in the Bulgarian population are also common in Europe. Alleles and haplotypes considered as Mediterranean are relatively frequent in the Bulgarian population. Observation of Oriental alleles confirms the contribution of Asians to the genetic diversity of Bulgarians. The use of high-resolution typing methods allowed to identify allele variants rare for Europeans that were correlated to specific population groups. Phylogenetic and correspondence analyses showed that Bulgarians are more closely related to Macedonians, Greeks, and Romanians than to other European populations and Middle Eastern people living near the Mediterranean. The HLA-A,-B,-DRB1 allele and haplotype diversity defined by high-resolution DNA methods confirm that the Bulgarian population is characterized by features of southern European anthropological type with some influence of additional ethnic groups. Implementation of high-resolution typing methods allows a significantly wider spectrum of HLA variation to be detected, including rare alleles and haplotypes, and further clarifies the origin of Bulgarians.

A DNA study which directly contradicts the laughable (and pulled from print) study by Arnaiz Villena that claimed Greeks were closley related to Ethiopians.

I'm studying international development, and for my class, this concentration has been dominated by females. There are maybe four other guys studying it.

I've had a lot of female bosses in various disciplines (web design, the Army, USAID), so I'm used to it. It has benefits and drawbacks. Usually women tend to be more engaged in tasks than men do. Women are more studious and more detail-oriented. Men tend to get bored easily and drift about. That's really all I should say on that topic.

I have a class on small-medium enterprise which has a few guys in it but is still female-dominated.

Last year I went on a ski trip with all women, except for my friend's dad. Very bizarre -- I think we just ceded our opinions to the girls on that one.

I go to yoga with my friend and I'm typically the only guy there except for a few random guys who are mostly gay. So I'm in all black and have tattoos and a beard.

I have a workshop on managing development in which I'm the only guy out of maybe 15 people. Our professor is a female. Her guest speakers have been all females so far. The other week we had a class on gender roles in project design. I told the class I was going to keep my mouth shut.

This has been nothing but a continuous source of amusement for my classmates.

To be honest I think a development strategy, as Muhammad Yunus and Grameen have been doing, focused on developing plans around the women in society is sound. Women have innate responsibility and control in communities, even in Muslim ones, so they tend to be more reliable even if legally or culturally speaking they are not empowered.

Anyway I guess I'm pointing this out because I think it's interesting to note the changes going on in my life experiences. I spent five years in the Army which was extremely male-dominated and now I'm on the other side.

The good part is that I've succeeded in both environments. Bottom line is to make a lot of money as a result of helping people. Hopefully this process will help me get there, no matter who I have to work with. As all startup literature says, the most important thing is to have the smartest team you can find.

Several obstacles stand in our way as we explore this story. Chief among them are the arguments that;

1.  Adam and Eve were the first people on the earth.

2. Adam and Eve were immortal before the fall.

3. The Earth is only about 6,000 years ago.

These seem to be daunting obstacles that cannot find common ground with well established scientific theory. Fair enough, I love a good challenge. Let's start by discussing the firstness of Adam and Eve.

Scientists love to classify things. They classify anything and everything from rocks to butterflies to bacteria to hominids - the general class of primates that includes Monkeys, Apes and Humans. Humans fall into a sub-classification of Homo which includes several extinct species including Kenyanthropus, Paranthropus and Australopithecus.  Homo Neanderthalensis, (or Neanderthals) is considered to be the last ancestor of modern man. Homo-Sapiens (Us) are different from these ancestors; not in the way Africans are different from Asians who are different from Caucasians, but different as in the way Chimpanzees are different from Baboons who are different from Gorillas. To say that Australopithecus is human is incorrect on several levels. To say that Australopithecus is similar to human is correct. But similar is not the same as SAME. To disregard the claim that Adam and Eve (Admittedly just Anglicized names for whatever their real common names were) were the first humans because we have found bones from the Olduvai Gorge in Kenya, Africa that are dated at over a million years old is just not right. You see, none of those bones were from Homosapiens. In fact, anthropologists argued over what class they were from. The Leakeys, discoverers of those great finds, classified them one way and other researchers saw them differently. In no case, however, were they classified as Homosapiens. By the way, Dr. Louis Leakey was also a Christian missionary who believed in the theories of Darwin. He said "Nothing I've ever found has contradicted the Bible. It's people with their finite minds who misread the Bible."

So what is it that makes a human a human? I'm sure philosophers could debate this issue forever. We'll forgo that and offer our own hypothesis. I believe that the single most defining trait of humans is that they have an innate sense of right and wrong. They have a conscience. While it is true that some people have pretty effectively erased those traits from their own lives, isn't it also true that we accuse those same people of being 'inhuman'? It is this innate sense of right and wrong that is variously called "the Light of Christ" or "the Divine Spark" that also makes us accountable for our 'sins' or misdeeds. When animals do something bad we say they are just following their instincts but when people do those same things we accuse them of wrong doing and say "you know better than that!" This accountability allows us to work righteousness and commit sin. This accountability is the only thing that allows us to be Judged of God (or however you view it) and allows us to be classified (I guess we all do it) as good or evil.

Could it be that when the Bible says that Adam and Eve were the first people on Earth what it was really saying is that Adam and Eve were the first Hominids to have a conscience and to be accountable for their actions? In this way, the disobedience that Adam and Eve displayed in the Garden of Eden would truly have been the "original sin". Interestingly, the Bible says that God directed the creation and organization of all life on earth yet it is only mankind that is referred to as "the children of God" and it is only to humans that God calls himself our "Heavenly Father". In this broader view could we not say that Adam and Eve are appropriate tags for the first of the species that we belong to, even though precursor species might have paved the way for our development?

The scriptures say that there was no death before the fall of Adam and Eve; that in fact death was introduced by the commission of the original disobedience in the garden. Hum? On the face of it, this just doesn't make sense. After all, what about the food they, and all the animals, ate? Let's say they ate fruit, a plum or a peach. Didn’t that fruit have to develop from the blossom of the tree from which it came? Didn’t that blossom have to flower to attract the bees that pollinated it? Isn't it true that once a flower is pollinated the job of the flower is done and the petals wilt and die and fall away, leaving an ever swelling bud that turns into the fruit. Isn't the death of a flower a death just the same? What about the fruit itself? If Adam and Eve ate anything didn't that mean that whatever they ate died when it was plucked or at very least when it was eaten? Well, you get the point. This immortality claim is one that seems hard to accept. However, as we have discussed before (See previous blog "The 900 year old man") age and aging is a very relative thing and it certainly is possible for a living being to have a much longer lifespan than is commonly thought.

But what is Death? The word is used in many different ways.  When a living organism ceases to live we say it is dead. But we also use that word to signify the end of lots of other things. We all, for instance just witnessed the 'death of Lehman Brothers' a Wall St. firm that had lived for 150 years. When two lovers break up we say it was the death of a Romance. A fundamental societal shift can mark the death of an age as in "the death of innocence". Indeed, the word death can denote many things, most of them bad.

There is one other form of death which all spiritual people fear; that is "Spiritual death". Let's say that spiritual death means the separation - or permanent separation if you like - of man from the presence of God. If the scriptures say that eternal life is being with God then eternal death would be the eternal separation from God. It must be something like this because the scriptures say that we can overcome spiritual death and that we can be born again; all words that indicate not an actual physical death or birth but a symbolic or spiritual death or birth. The bible states that the wages of sin is death so it is reasonable to say that we separate ourselves from God and Godliness when we sin - that is, when we disobey a principle that we know is true, something that animals don't and can't so.

It is plausible that the biblical account of the creation and of our first parents was referring to this death when it said that prior to the establishment of a life form that resembled and had the spark of God within; there was no death on the earth. The account in Genesis says that Adam and Eve's death would come about if they disobeyed one of the Father's edicts; that is, if they broke a rule, which was a sin. Sin separates us from righteousness and the spirit of God so it would have been true for Adam and Eve that in the day they 'broke the rules' they would surely die (spiritually die that is). We know that they did not die the very day they sinned (there's that word die again) because as a punishment they were cast out of the garden into the 'dark and dreary world' where they had to toil for their food and shelter. In fact, Adam lived for over 900 years after he left the garden and we have no idea how long he and Eve were in the garden before the fall. Obviously God did not lie so obviously he meant something more esoteric when he said that “in the day that you eat thereof you shall surely die!” If God can speak in metaphoric or symbolic terms then why can’t we take a more metaphoric or symbolic interpretation of his words? It is not a far stretch to say that Adam and Eve enjoyed the presence of God while they were in the garden. This was tantamount to eternal life. By sinning and being thrust out of the garden, and more importantly, being thrust out of the presence of God they were separated from Him and thus suffered a spiritual death. Again, I am not trying to preach any type of theology here; rather I am trying to see if it is possible to satisfy both Scientists and theologians; or, if there is any common ground from which to start the process of reconciliation.

The third claim (Well, actually it is an inference) of Genesis is best displayed by Matt Damon’s recent ‘call out’ of Sarah Palin over whether she actually believed that the earth was only 6,000 years old. It is true that the genealogies of the Bible indicate that about 6,000 years have elapsed from the days of Adam to the present. This is actually pretty well documented as the Biblical writers all seemed obsessed with genealogies. The truth is that all cultures up until the last hundred years or so have been obsessed with genealogies. Much of the social order was maintained by rights of survivorship and the traditions of the firstborn and so on. In modern times we don’t seem to care much about this anymore but it was an issue of vital importance throughout human history.

If we accept the ideas presented in the discussion of death just a few paragraphs ago we can cover this argument quickly. The Biblical account of the 6 creative periods indicates that the creation of the earth was a process of steps. The Haggadah says that the creation was actually many more steps but I guess it all boils down to how narrowly you define one individual step. The point is, the creation, even by biblical accounts didn’t occur in one giant ‘poof’ moment. It was an orderly process where one event followed another. Whenever anything follows a process I believe science can explain it. I personally believe God believes in order and all things were and are done in an orderly process. The scriptures imply that God is a god of order so it would follow that He used processes to organize and prepare the world for the eventual human habitation that it is today. The fact that Moses recounts this process in only 3 pages does not in any way imply that it occurred overnight. I have blogged before that the word day has many meanings and could easily, and surly, referred to a creative period much longer than a 24 hour period. How long each creative period was we can only speculate but the tectonic processes that could have caused the ‘Waters be gathered together and let the dry land to appear” could easily have taken many thousands or millions of years. The introduction of plants should have taken many eons as ecosystems were developed and stabilized. Likewise the animal kingdom must have gone through many iterations (as it continues to do even to this day) before becoming what we know today. Researchers say that twice in pre-Cambrian times more than 95% of the animal kingdom went extinct only to be followed by what they call the pre-Cambrian explosion when the majority of animal life appeared all at once (relatively speaking). The point is, the Earth could have been many millions, or thousands of millions of earth years old before we see the introduction of Adam and Eve in the Garden. The Bible, concerning itself with man and his relationship to God, would concern itself, except for a 3 page recap of the creation, only with the dealings between God and Man and that could well have been for only about the last 6,000 years.

I don’t know, I could be wrong.

Skin color is one of the most conspicuous ways in which humans vary and has been widely used to define human races. Here we present new evidence indicating that variations in skin color are adaptive, and are related to the regulation of ultraviolet (UV) radiation penetration in the integument and its direct and indirect effects on fitness. Using remotely sensed data on UV radiation levels, hypotheses concerning
the distribution of the skin colors of indigenous peoples relative to UV levels were tested quantitatively in this study for the first time.

The major results of this study are: (1) skin reflectance is strongly correlated with absolute latitude and UV radiation levels. The highest correlation between skin reflectance and UV levels was observed at 545 nm, near the absorption maximum for oxyhemoglobin, suggesting that the main role of melanin pigmentation in humans is regulation of the effects of UV radiation on the contents of cutaneous blood vessels located in the dermis. (2) Predicted skin reflectances deviated little from observed values. (3) In all populations for which skin reflectance data were available for males and females, females were found to be lighter skinned than males. (4) The clinal gradation of skin coloration observed among indigenous peoples is correlated with UV radiation levels and represents a compromise solution to the conflicting physiological requirements of photoprotection and vitamin D synthesis.

The earliest members of the hominid lineage probably had a mostly unpigmented or lightly pigmented integument covered with dark black hair, similar to that of the modern chimpanzee. The evolution of a naked, darkly pigmented integument occurred early in the evolution of the genus Homo. A dark epidermis protected sweat glands from UV-induced injury, thus insuring the integrity of somatic thermoregulation. Of greater significance to individual reproductive success was that highly melanized skin protected against UV-induced photolysis of folate (Branda & Eaton, 1978, Science 201, 625–626; Jablonski, 1992, Proc. Australas. Soc. Hum. Biol. 5, 455–462, 1999, Med. Hypotheses 52, 581–582), a metabolite essential for normal development of the embryonic neural tube (Bower & Stanley, 1989, The Medical Journal of Australia 150, 613–619; Medical Research Council Vitamin Research Group, 1991, The Lancet 338, 31–37) and spermatogenesis (Cosentino et al., 1990, Proc. Natn. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 87, 1431–1435; Mathur et al., 1977, Fertility Sterility 28, 1356–1360).

As hominids migrated outside of the tropics, varying degrees of depigmentation evolved in order to permit UVB-induced synthesis of pre-vitamin D3. The lighter color of female skin may be required to permit synthesis of the relatively higher amounts of vitamin D3 necessary during pregnancy and lactation.

Skin coloration in humans is adaptive and labile. Skin pigmentation levels have changed more than once in human evolution. Because of this, skin coloration is of no value in determining phylogenetic relationships among modern human groups.

Figure 1. The potential for synthesis of previtamin D3 in lightly pigmented human skin computed from annual average UVMED. The highest annual values for UVMED are shown in light violet, with incrementally lower values in dark violet, then in light to dark shades of blue, orange, green and gray (64 classes). White denotes areas for which no UVMED data exist. Mercator projection. In the tropics, the zone of adequate UV radiation throughout the year (Zone 1) is delimited by bold black lines. Light stippling indicates Zone 2, in which there is not suffcient UV radiation during at least one month of the year to produce previtamin D3 in human skin. Zone 3, in which there is not suffcient UV radiation for previtamin D3 synthesis on average for the whole year, is indicated by heavy stippling.

Figure 2. A comparison of the estimated areas in which annual UVMED is not sufficient, averaged over the year, to catalyze previtamin D3 synthesis in lightly, moderately and highly melanized skin. All zones were defined by the values for previtamin D3 synthesis potential presented in Table 2. Widely spaced oblique hachure covers the northernmost region of the Northern Hemisphere in which there is not sufficient UV radiation, averaged over the entire year, to catalyze the formation of previtamin D3 in lightly pigmented (Type IIIa) human skin (Zone 3 from Figure 1). Narrowly spaced oblique hachure denotes the area, in addition to that shown by widely spaced oblique hachure, in which there is not sufficient UV radiation to catalyze the formation of previtamin D3 in moderately melanized (Type V) skin. The large circum-Equatorial area denoted by stippling covers the area, in addition to the previous two, in which there is not sufficient UV radiation averaged over the entire year to catalyze the formation of previtamin D3 in highly melanized (Type VI)
skin.

Figure 3. Predicted shading of skin colors for indigenous humans based on the results of a linear regression model in which skin reflectance (at 685 nm) for indigenous peoples in both hemispheres was allowed to respond to annual average UVMED for both hemispheres. The predicted skin reflectance values were first divided into 50 equal intervals and then graphically represented in gray shades ranging from darkest gray (greatest melanization) to lightest gray (least melanization). Darker shades of gray represent a higher degree of skin melanization and do not represent actual predicted skin colors.

Figure 4. Gradation of skin colors for known indigenous human populations, represented by shading from darkest to lightest gray (greatest to least melanization, as in Figure 3), based on observed skin reflectances at 685 nm reported in Table 6.

Conclusions
The results presented here demonstrate that skin coloration in humans is highly adaptive and has evolved to accommodate the physiological needs of humans as they have dispersed to regions of widely varying annual UVMED. The dual selective pressures of photoprotection and vitamin D3 synthesis have created two clines of skin pigmentation. The first cline, from the equator to the poles, is defined by the significantly greater need for photoprotection at the equator in particular and within the tropics in general. Deeply melanized skin protects against folate photolysis and helps to prevent UV-induced injury to sweat glands(and subsequent disruption of thermoregulation). The second cline, from approximately 30N to the North Pole, is defined by the greater need in high latitudes to accommodate as much previtamin D3 synthesis as possible in areas of low annual UVMED. Humans inhabiting regionsat the intersection of these clines demonstrate a potential for developing varying degrees of facultative pigmentation (tanning) (Quevedo et al., 1975). Moderately melanized skin would appear to be at risk of vitamin D3 deficiency and rickets under conditions where UV radiation is restricted as a result of latitude, cultural practices or both.

The results of this study suggest that skin pigmentation is relatively labile, and that adaptations to local UVMED conditions can occur over relatively short periods of geological time. Thus, it is likely that some human lineages through time may have gone through alternating periods of depigmentation and pigmentation (or vice versa) as they moved from one UVMED regime to another. As the pace of human migrations has quickened in recent centuries, more and more populations are finding themselves living under UV irradiation regimes to which they are inherently poorly adapted (e.g., the English who settled in Australia in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and the Indians and Pakistanis who have moved to northern England in recent decades), with major public health consequences (Kaidbey et al., 1979; Henderson et al., 1987). Cultural practices such as sun-bathing and purdah have in some cases exacerbated these conditions and mitigated others. Because of its high degree of responsiveness to environmental conditions, skin pigmentation is of no value in assessing the phylogenetic relationships between human groups.

I've not heard about the pholysis of folate before. Interesting. That was one of the faults with the skin cancer/sunburn theory, it took effect after the reproductive years .

Short Tandem-Repeat Polymorphism/Alu Haplotype Variation at the PLAT Locus: Implications for Modern Human Origins
S. A. Tishkoff,1,* A. J. Pakstis,2 M. Stoneking,3 J. R. Kidd,2 G. Destro-Bisol,4 A. Sanjantila,5 R.-b. Lu,6 A. S. Deinard,7 G. Sirugo,8 T. Jenkins,9 K. K. Kidd,2 and A. G. Clark1
.
Received March 13, 2000; Accepted July 18, 2000.

Two dinucleotide short tandem-repeat polymorphisms (STRPs) and a polymorphic Alu element spanning a 22-kb region of the PLAT locus on chromosome 8p12-q11.2 were typed in 1,287–1,420 individuals originating from 30 geographically diverse human populations, as well as in 29 great apes. These data were analyzed as haplotypes consisting of each of the dinucleotide repeats and the flanking Alu insertion/deletion polymorphism. The global pattern of STRP/Alu haplotype variation and linkage disequilibrium (LD) is informative for the reconstruction of human evolutionary history. Sub-Saharan African populations have high levels of haplotype diversity within and between populations, relative to non-Africans, and have highly divergent patterns of LD. Non-African populations have both a subset of the haplotype diversity present in Africa and a distinct pattern of LD. The pattern of haplotype variation and LD observed at the PLAT locus suggests a recent common ancestry of non-African populations, from a small population originating in eastern Africa. These data indicate that, throughout much of modern human history, sub-Saharan Africa has maintained both a large effective population size and a high level of population substructure. Additionally, Papua New Guinean and Micronesian populations have rare haplotypes observed otherwise only in African populations, suggesting ancient gene flow from Africa into Papua New Guinea, as well as gene flow between Melanesian and Micronesian populations.

Genetic clustering. I'm surprised the Yemenites don't cluster closer to the Ethiopians (22 and 12). The graph also shows a strangley close relationship between Somalis and Papua New Guinea.

 1 = Biaka; 2 = Mbuti; 3 = Wolof; 4 = Ewondo; 5 = Bamileke; 6 = Bantu-speakers; 7 = Herero; 8 = Zu/Wasi !Kung San; 9 = Kwengo; 10 = Nama; 11 = Va/Sekele !Kung San; 12 = Ethiopians; 13 = Somali; 14 = Papua New Guineans; 15 = Micronesians; 16 = Nasioi Melanesians; 17 = Ami; 18 = Atayal; 19 = Chinese; 20 = Japanese; 21 = Yakut; 22 = Yemenites; 23 = Druze; 24 = Danes; 25 = Finns; 26 = Maya; 27 = Cheyenne; 28 = Ticuna; 29 = Surui; 30 = Karitiana.

Frontal and Facial Flatness of Major Human Populations

TSUNEHIKO HANIHARA*
Department of Anatomy, Saga Medical School, Saga 849-8501, Japan

In the present study, the frontal and facial features of 112 populations from around the world are compared in terms of frontal and facial flatness measurements. Univariate analyses and canonical correlation analysis were applied to six indices representing flatness of frontal and facial bones. The deep infraglabellar notch, marked prognathism, and flat frontal bone show distinctive Australian/Melanesian characters among recent populations. Very flat faces in the transverse plane are the most common condition in eastern Asians. Some subSaharan Africans share similar characteristics with Australians in terms of marked prognathism and flat frontal bones in the sagittal plane on the one hand, and with eastern Asians on the other hand, for flat nasal and zygomaxillary regions. These results are not necessarily inconsistent with the evidence for regional continuity. The examination of relationships between frontal and facial flatness through canonical correlation analysis reveals a significant association between morphological features such as a deep infraglabellar notch, prognathism, flat frontal bone, and flat faces in the transverse plane. In this context, together with the generalized features of the late Pleistocene fossil record, the features of Australians having transversely projecting faces and of eastern Asians showing weak  infraglabellar notchs, ortho-/mosognathism, and rounded frontal bones can be interpreted as a differential retention of ancestral traits of anatomically modern humans. This may allow us to suppose that the frontal and facial flatness features treated herein can be explained by the hypothesis of a single origin of anatomically modern humans. Am J Phys Anthropol 111:105–134,

Just a reference link.