Journal of anthropological sciences (J ANTHROPOL SCI)

Publications in this journal

• Article: Interdisciplinary views on Molecular Anthropology in the Genomic Era.

  Quentin D Atkinson, Guido Barbujani, Mark Collard, David Comas, Claudio Franceschi
  Journal of anthropological sciences 01/2010; 88:231-50.
• Article: The very first time for JASs.

  Giovanni Destro-Bisol
  Journal of anthropological sciences 01/2010; 88:9-10.
• Article: Genetics and anthropology in studies on aging and Chagas disease.

  Claudio Franceschi, Daniele Yang Yao, Federica Sevini, Aurelia Santoro, Donata Luiselli, Davide Pettener, Giammarco Ferri, Maria Cristina Dasso, Riccardo Perez de la Hoz, Edgardo Moretti, Beatriz Basso, Irma Castro, Anna Ciannameo, Zelda Franceschi
  Journal of anthropological sciences 01/2010; 88:245-50.
• Article: The prospects for tracing deep language ancestry

  QD Atkinson
  Journal of anthropological sciences 01/2010; 88:231-233.
• Source

  Available from: isita-org.com

  Article: Cognitive inferences in fossil apes (Primates, Hominoidea): does encephalization reflect intelligence?

  David M Alba
  [show abstract] [hide abstract]
  ABSTRACT: Paleobiological inferences on general cognitive abilities (intelligence) in fossil hominoids strongly rely on relative brain size or encephalization, computed by means of allometric residuals, quotients or constants. Th is has been criticized on the basis that it presumably fails to reflect the higher intelligence of great apes, and absolute brain size has been favored instead. Many problems of encephalization metrics stem from the decrease of allometric slopes towards lower taxonomic level, thus making it difficult to determine at what level encephalization metrics have biological meaning. Here, the hypothesis that encephalization can be used as a good neuroanatomical proxy for intelligence is tested at two different taxonomic levels. A significant correlation is found between intelligence and encephalization only at a lower taxonomic level, i.e. on the basis of a low allometric slope, irrespective of whether species data or independent contrasts are employed. This indicates that higher-level slopes, resulting from encephalization grade shifts between subgroups (including hylobatids vs. great apes), do not reflect functional equivalence, whereas lower-level metrics can be employed as a paleobiological proxy for intelligence. Thus, in accordance to intelligence rankings, lower-level metrics indicate that great apes are more encephalized than both monkeys and hylobatids. Regarding fossil taxa, encephalization increased during hominin evolution (particularly in Homo), but during the Miocene a significant shift towards higher encephalization (and inferred enhanced cognitive abilities) must have been also involved in the emergence of the great-ape-and-human clade (Hominidae). This is confirmed by the modern great-ape-like degree of encephalization displayed by the fossil great ape Hispanopithecus, which contrasts with the rather hylobatid-like degree of the stem hominoid Proconsul. The similarly low encephalization of Oreopithecus might result from secondary reduction under insularity conditions, but the australopith-like degree of encephalization of Homo floresiensis seems incompatible with the cognitive abilities inferred from the stone tools attributed to this taxon.
  Journal of anthropological sciences 01/2010; 88:11-48.
• Article: Bantu-Khoisan interactions at the edge of the Bantu expansions: insights from southern Angola.

  Jorge Rocha
  [show abstract] [hide abstract]
  ABSTRACT: For a human population geneticist, an interest in Africa hardly requires an explanation. With the highest time depth of human history and over 2000 linguistic groups spreading across highly diverse geographical settings, Africa harbors a tremendous variety of genetic patterns that remain to be explained. My own interest in African populations started with São Tomé, a tiny plantation island located at the heart of the Gulf of Guinea that was peopled by slaves imported from the adjacent areas of the mainland. Presently, I am still interested in insular populations related to the slave trade, like the Cape Verde Archipelago, facing Senegal. Moreover, I became involved in the study of genetic diversity of continental areas like Angola and Mozambique, lying at the southwestern and southeastern edges of the Bantu expansions, respectively. The area of Angola, in particular, is especially interesting for understanding the push of Bantu-speaking peoples out of the rain forest into the arid steppes of southwestern Africa. In southern Angola, the cultural and geographical proximity between Bantu and Khoisan cattle herders poses intriguing questions about the development of the relatively isolated Southwest African pastoral scene and the nature of the interactions between the vanguard of the Bantu expansions and the non-Bantu peoples from the desert.
  Journal of anthropological sciences 01/2010; 88:5-8.
• Source

  Available from: isita-org.com

  Article: Inference of demographic processes from comparisons of ancient and modern DNAs.

  Guido Barbujani
  Journal of anthropological sciences 01/2010; 88:235-7.
• Source

  Available from: isita-org.com

  Article: The Genographic Project: insights into Western/Central European variation.

  David Comas
  Journal of anthropological sciences 01/2010; 88:243-4.
• Source

  Available from: isita-org.com

  Article: Metaplasticity and the human becoming: principles of neuroarchaeology.

  Lambros Malafouris
  [show abstract] [hide abstract]
  ABSTRACT: Important recent developments in brain and cognitive sciences offer new avenues for productive cooperation between archaeology and neuroscience. Archaeologists can now learn more about the biological and neural substrates of the human cognitive abilities and use that knowledge to better define and identify their archaeologically visible traces and possible signatures. In addition, important questions and prevailing assumptions about the emergence of modern human cognition can be critically reviewed in the light of recent neuroscientific findings. Thus there is great prospect in the archaeology of mind for developing a systematic cross-disciplinary endeavor to map the common ground between archaeology and neuroscience, frame the new questions, and bridge the diverge analytical levels and scales of time. The term "neuroarchaeology" is introduced to articulate this rapidly developing field of cross-disciplinary research, focusing on questions and problems that emerge at the interface between brain and culture over the long- term developmental trajectories of human becoming. Neuroarchaeology aims at constructing an analytical bridge between brain and culture by putting material culture, embodiment, time and long term change at center stage in the study of mind. This paper presents a critical overview of this new research field and introduces the notion of "metaplasticity" to describe the enactive constitutive intertwining between neural and cultural plasticity. In this context, I summarize the main objectives, cross-disciplinary links, and theoretical grounding of this new approach to the archaeology of mind and outline some of the foundational issues and methodological challenges such a project might face.
  Journal of anthropological sciences 01/2010; 88:49-72.
• Source

  Available from: isita-org.com

  Article: Right handed Neandertals: Vindija and beyond.

  David W Frayer, Ivana Fiore, Carles Lalueza-Fox, Jakov Radovcić, Luca Bondioli
  [show abstract] [hide abstract]
  ABSTRACT: Seven Vindija (Croatia) Neandertal teeth, dated about 32,000 years ago, were analyzed to determine patterning of scratches on the anterior teeth. Oblique scratches exclusively on the labial faces of incisors and canines represent a distinctive pattern, characteristic of hand directed, non-masticatory activities. At Vindija and elsewhere these scratches reveal activities, which were performed primarily with the right hand. The late Neandertals from Vindija, combined with other studies, show that European Neandertals were predominately right-handed with a ratio 15:2 (88.2%), a frequency similar to living people. Studies of teeth from Atapuerca extend this modern ratio to more than 500,000 years ago and increase the frequency of right- handers in the European fossil record to almost 94%. Species-wide, preferential right-handedness is a defining feature of modern Homo sapiens, tied to brain laterality and language with the 9:1 ratio of right- to left- handers - a reflection of the link between left hemispheric dominance and language. Up-to-date behavioral and anatomical studies of Neandertal fossils and the recent discovery of their possession of the FOXP2 gene indicate Neandertals (and, very likely, their European ancestors) had linguistic capacities similar to living humans.
  Journal of anthropological sciences 01/2010; 88:113-27.
• Source

  Available from: isita-org.com

  Article: Genetics and southern African prehistory: an archaeological view.

  Peter Mitchell
  [show abstract] [hide abstract]
  ABSTRACT: Southern African populations speaking languages that are often - but inaccurately - grouped together under the label 'Khoisan' are an important focus of molecular genetic research, not least in tracking the early stages of human genetic diversification. This paper reviews these studies from an archaeological standpoint, concentrating on modern human origins, the introduction of pastoralism to southern Africa and admixture between the region's indigenous foragers and incoming Bantu-speaking farmers. To minimise confusion and facilitate correlation with anthropological, linguistic and archaeological data it emphasises the need to use ethnolinguistic labels accurately and with due regard for the particular histories of individual groups. It also stresses the geographically and culturally biased nature of the genetic studies undertaken to date, which employ data from only a few 'Khoisan' groups. Specific topics for which the combined deployment of genetic and archaeological methods would be particularly useful include the early history of Ju-Hoan- and Tuu-speaking hunter-gatherers, the expansion of Khoe-speaking populations, the chronology of genetic exchange between hunter-gatherers and farmers, and the origins of the Sotho/Tswana- and Nguni-speaking populations that dominate much of southern Africa today.
  Journal of anthropological sciences 01/2010; 88:73-92.