Secular trends in Cherokee cranial morphology: Eastern vs Western bands

Abstract

These findings support negative secular trend occurring for both Cherokee bands where the environment made a detrimental impact; this is especially marked with the Western Cherokee band.

Is north Indian population changing it craniofacial form? A study of secular trends in craniometric indices and its relation to sex and ancestry estimation

“…Kasai et al, [101] studied difference in Japanese and Australian aboriginal crania and found that the masticatory forces due to different food habits are responsible for the difference. Growth disturbances during early development also reflected in the craniofacial dimensions [8].…”

“…These craniometric indices may be affected by secular or temporal changes [8]. Secular changes are physical changes that may take place within the given population due to dramatic shifts in living standards or exposure to a new environment.…”

“…These types of changes over the short-term are thought to be the result of an improvement or decline in environmental conditions, particularly nutrition [9]. Previously, significant craniofacial changes in the dimension of past and present populations of Eastern and Western band Cherokee population (a Native American tribe) [8], African and White [8,10] Japanese [11][12][13] Croatian [14,15] Mexican [16] and Indians [17,18] have been reported. Significant secular increase has been found in all those variables which are used to calculate craniofacial indices e.g.…”

“…Significant secular increase has been found in all those variables which are used to calculate craniofacial indices e.g. cranial length and breadth, facial height, cranial height and bizygomatic breadth [8,[10][11][12][13]18,19]. The specificity of the particular cranial feature may be diluted due to temporal changes over decades, as the cranium is becoming higher and narrower [20][21][22].…”

Population inference from contemporaryAmerican craniometrics

“…Data on these individuals were contributed to the FDB by a single practitioner over the same 2-month period and, though identified as Hispanic, their geographic origin is stated as unknown. This cluster also contains one White female from the Todd Collection, whose allocation is likely anomalous: her early birth year (1911) relative to the White female mean (1,946 6 22 years) may set her apart morphologically in light of arguments made for secular change in the cranium over the last century in U.S. populations (Jantz and Meadows Jantz, 2000;Wescott and Jantz, 2005;Sutphin et al, 2014).…”