Population Affinities of 19th Century Cuban Crania: Implications for Identification Criteria in South Florida Cuban Americans

Abstract

Identification criteria, specifically discriminant function formulae derived from traditional craniometrics, currently used in South Florida for Cuban Americans and other “Hispanic” groups, are unsuitable to provide adequate biological profiles due to complex biological histories as well as widely diverse geographic origins. Florida's total population is approximately 16 million (15,982,378) individuals. Of the total population 2,682,715, or 16.8%, are self-identified as “Hispanic”. South Florida (herein defined as Miami-Dade, Broward and Collier Counties) is home to 60% of the total Hispanic population of Florida with 1,291,737 (48.15%) residing in Miami-Dade County. The Hispanic population of Miami-Dade County makes up 57.0% of the total population of 2,253,362. Each recognized sub-group of Hispanics (Mexican, Puerto Rican, and Cuban) includes its own geographic point-of-origin and population history. Cuban-Americans (arriving in the late 1950's and early 1960's) make up the largest sub-population of Florida's Hispanics in any county and in Miami-Dade number 650,601 or 51% of the total Latin population. Additionally, as in other agricultural states, Florida has a very large population of undocumented workers who primarily arrive from Texas and points south of the Straits of Florida. Thus the application of the available traditional craniometric and non-metric methods are not appropriate for South Florida's Latin population. To begin to address this issue in relation to South Florida's Cuban population, we present an analysis of cranio-facial shape variation in a 19th Century Cuban sample, 17th Century Spanish sample, a Precontact Cuban sample, and Terry Blacks using geometric morphometric methods. Significant biological shape differences and patterns of variation are observed among the groups. These results provide us with a context in which to begin to understand the biological variation of Cuban Americans, which will enable the development of identification criteria specific for this U.S. hybrid Hispanic community.

Population inference from contemporary American craniometrics

“…As a uniquely Hispanic cluster is not formed, these patterns attest to a high level of admixture and the complexity of the label, "Hispanic," which is often a very personal social, linguistic, and geographic construct (Taylor et al, 2012). This trend also helps to explain the well-known difficulties in, for example, the forensic literature, on producing useful classifications for the identification of individuals of Hispanic identity (Ross et al, 2004;Spradley et al, 2008;Tise et al, 2014).…”

“…However, from these results, we can foresee how making clear group divisions will increase in difficulty and the risk of individual-level misclassifications will similarly grow as we direct our analysis towards more admixed populations -here, from the Native American, to Black to Hispanic groups. Indeed, prior work has shown that discriminant function analysis delivers particularly poor results for persons of Hispanic identity in forensic contexts (Ross et al, 2004;Spradley et al, 2008;Tise et al, 2014). This should give us pause as demographic trends in the U.S. are shifting towards an increase in both minority and admixed populations (Jones and Bullock, 2012;Colby and Ortman, 2014).…”

Morphometric Analysis of the Neurocranium in an Adult South African Cadaveric Sample,

“…Human cranial variation has been studied through many different methods and in many different population groups (e.g. ). It has been shown that the morphology of the cranium is able to reflect both genetic and environmental influences that contribute to variation in its morphology .…”

Implications of dimorphism, population variation, and secular change in estimating population affinity in the Iberian Peninsula

“…The standards for allocating or differentiating closely related populations, Hispanics for example, are currently being addressed by numerous researchers using both traditional and modern threedimensional methods [6][7][8][9]. Recent studies have paid much attention to the problematic nature of using biologically meaningless terms such as ''Hispanic'', which ignore geographic heterogeneity throughout the New World [7,10,11].…”

“…Recent studies have paid much attention to the problematic nature of using biologically meaningless terms such as ''Hispanic'', which ignore geographic heterogeneity throughout the New World [7,10,11]. Ross et al [7] demonstrated that some modern Cubans show a strong African affinity followed by a Spanish component and lacked an indigenous Amerindian biological affinity suggesting a complete replacement of the indigenous Cuban population. On the other hand, some Mexicans showed a different biological pattern entirely, lacking both the African and Spanish components, while showing a strong indigenous Amerindian affinity [10].…”