0000000000033872
AUTHOR
Ilse Schwidetzky
Postpleistocene evolution of the brain?
The number of extraneurons (Nc) has been calculated with the formulae of Jerison ('63) for prehistoric population samples to check the hypothesis that Nc may not only increase by increasing of cranial capacity but also by decreasing of body-weight (gracilisation). Body weight of skeletal populations has been estimated by the formula of Debetz ('67). Samples from the Western part of Europe and Egypt support the hypothesis, but Eastern europoid samples display opposite relations: Nc increases with robusticity. It seems (as Jerison already suggested) that Nc is no measurement of the level of behavior in the populations of H. sapiens; but it may point towards allometric differences between West…
A classification of European skulls from three time periods.
We analyze the taxonomic structure of European populations at three time periods, the Early Middle Ages, the Late Middle Ages and the Recent Period. The data consist of sample means for 10 cranial variables based on 137, 108, and 183 samples for the three periods. Clustering by standard numerical taxonomic procedures reveals that the data are represented only poorly as hierarchic classifications. The clusters form significant and moderately strong associations with an arrangement of the samples by regions (geography) and by language family. Whereas during the early period, language family showed a stronger association with clusters based on cranial morphology, in the recent populations thes…
Selektionstheorie und Rassenbildung beim Menschen
So far, the applications of the theory of selection to human race formation have primarily considered the selective quality of individual race characters which are preferred by classification. However only few physiologically important race characters have been found to have an evident selective advantage. It is the climate laws, however, that prompt the assumption that selection will take place according to differences of vitality and fertility under certain climatic conditions and that the visible race characters are but incidental effects of pleiotropic gene. It also appears that, in contrast to selection, mutability must be given more consideration to-day than before. For instance the e…