Anthropometric data collected in native populations of British Columbia in the late 19th century by Franz Boas were analyzed by two multivariate techniques. Multivariate analysis of variance was used to test physical classificatory units devised by Boas and an ad hoc classification based on local cultural units. Both were found to have some empirical validity. Mahalanobis' D (Mahalanobis, '30) was computed between pairs of local groups, for both sexes. From these a matrix of differences was prepared and diagrams drawn to illustrate phenetic relationships among samples. By this means one cluster of groups, Interior B. C. peoples, could be distinguished and other local samples appeared distinctly different from each other. It was concluded that in the absence of genealogical data by which to identlfy local populations, local cultural units are preferable to more inclusive units for making empirical comparisons and classifications.In the last decade of the 19th century Franz Boas (1891, 1895, 1898, Boas and Farrand, 1898) carried out a series of studies of the native peoples of British Columbia on behalf of the British Association for the Advancement of Science. These studies included anthropometric data. Based on these data and on impressions from many years of contact with the Northwest Coast Indians, Boas developed a classification which, according to the typological framework of the period, was stated in terms of physical types. In the final version (Boas, 1898) he defined three physical types: the Northern, typified by the Haida and the Tsimshian; the Kwakiutl, represented by the Bella Coola and the Kwakiutl; and the Thompson River type, exemplified by the Lillooet and the Thompson River Indians. This classification omitted many populations which Boas did not feel that he could define or subsume within the three named groups.Since Boas published the anthropometric data he collected, including Jhe subject's age, parents' village and linguistic group, it is possible to apply contemporary methods of analysis to the data in order to test specific hypotheses or to develop classifications. In this paper we are describing a research project in which both of these were done.Though obvious, it is necessary to discuss briefly the theoretical framework within which Boas worked. It was assumed that many physical characteristics (such as a broad head, a high nose) were inherited as unit traits (Boas, '03). Further, sets of traits were believed to be associated with groups of people; in effect physical types were conceived as sets of traits that characterized specific populations. Populational homogeneity was considered the rule; if intragroup heterogeneity was found it was assumed to be the result of a recent mixing of populations. Within this framework, empirical data could be used to suggest physical types or to substantiate types already conceived but could not be used directly to develop empirical classifications. Of course, there were no appropriate statistics available for this purpose.For his time, Boas was ...
With # Plate (No. VIII.), and a Section.[Read 8th February, 1897.] SINCE the publication of papers by Sir William Dawson and Professor Penhallow on Parka decipiens, renewed attention has been drawn to the origin and affinities of this deceiving fossil, and though the authors of the present paper had in their own minds been perfectly satisfied with the general conclusions arrived at by these writers, they are aware that doubts are still cast upon the propriety of associating certain stems and leaves with this organism as their fruit. Indeed, one eminent botanist, after all the evidence which has been produced, has been unable to accept it, and still expresses doubts of the vegetable origin of Parka at all.It is principally, then, to meet such objections that the present writers have thought of bringing together, and re-stating, in the following paper, the whole argument in favour of the vegetable origin and rhizocarpian affinities of this remarkable fossil.Parka decipiens was first discovered by Dr. Fleming, who described it in 1831.* It received its generic name from Parkhill, near Newburgh, on the Fife shore of the Firth of Tay, where Dr. Fleming had found it some two years previously in a bed of sandstone which underlies the Ochils, and stretches from Balmerino on the east to Abernethy and Dron on the west. Its specific name was given on account of its deceiving nature, a character which, as we shall see, it has since well maintained.Hugh Miller, in his " Testimony of the Rocks," t quotes Fleming's description of Parka, as follows: -"These organisms occur in the form of circular flat patches, not equalling an inch in diameter, and composed of numerous smaller contiguous pieces. They are not unlike what might be expected to result from a compressed berry, such as the bramble or the rasp. As, however, they are found lying adjacent to the narrow leaves of gramineous [-looking] vegetables, and chiefly in clay slate, originally lacustrine silt, it is probable that they constituted at Carleton University http://trngl.lyellcollection.org/ Downloaded from 106 TRANSACTIONS-GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY OP GLASGOW. the conglobate panicles of extinct species of the genus Junicus or Sparzanium."Sir Charles Lyell, in 1855,* referred to the occurrence of Parka in the sandstones of Fifeshire and Forfarshire, mentioning its resemblance to the eggs of Natica, a gasteropodous mollusc, and also figuring a specimen of the latter to show the resemblance between the two forms. But he says that, as no gasteropodous shells have been detected in the same formation, the Parka has, probably, no connection with this class of organisms. He also cites Mantell's theory of their batrachian origin.Hugh Miller, in 1857,t showed that the egg-theory of the origin of Parka had been first propounded by the quarrymen of Carmylie in Forfarshire, who likened it to "puddock [frog] spawn," an idea which was largely adopted by many of our leading geologists, but he himself favoured the vegetable origin, and compared it to a strawberry or raspberry. We may note here...
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