Effects of Colonialism from the Perspective of Craniofacial Variation

Abstract

Ribot, Morris, and Renschler compare two distinct case studies of Africans in order to investigate identity, origin, and population affinity of diasporic populations. In the first case study from Cobern Street in Cape Town, South Africa, the authors integrate stable isotope data and burial data with craniometric variation. In the second case, craniometric data are studied in a sample of Africans from the Morton Collection derived from a group of enslaved people brought to Colonial Cuba. In the Cobern Street setting, they find evidence of both first and second-generation immigrants or imported slaves from sub-Saharan Africa, as well as the possible presence of people of Asian descent (either slaves or immigrants). In contrast with the Cobern Street case study, Ribot and colleagues find high levels of diversity represented in the Morton sample, with some individuals from a single origin within Central, West, or East Africa, some individuals exhibiting multiple possible African origins, and finally, some other individuals exhibiting complex patterns of heterogeneity which may reflect origins and admixture from Asia, Europe, or Mesoamerica.