Isolation by distance on the Island of Korčula: Correlation analysis of distance measures

Abstract

Within the framework of holistic anthropological investigations of the rural populations on the Island of Korcula, various measures of biological distances between eight villages were estimated (Mahalanobis' D2 for anthropometric, physiological, and dermatoglyphic traits); socio-cultural similarities and distances were determined (kinship coefficient estimated from migrational data and Hemming similarity measure estimated from linguistic data). A matrix of Spearman's rank correlation coefficients among these measures demonstrated a pattern of interdependencies, which we analysed further by principal components analysis. The first component reflects the cumulative effect of different processes acting on the initial gene distribution over a long period of time; the second component represents initial population structure; and the third component reflects recent migration influences.

Dermatoglyphic variation among Finno‐Ugric speaking populations: Methodological alternatives

“…Utilization of dermatoglyphics in population studies has become increasingly common as the perception grows that they may offer new insights regarding historical inference (Froehlich and Giles, 1981;Rudan et al, 1988). Methodological variation in such applications is the rule, the question of how methodological choices may influence results seldom being addressed.…”