MadSci Network: Evolution |
Patricia, You can generally identify the sex (gender is a matter of personal choice) of well-preserved human skeletons from the shapes or orientations of certain bones. If you only have the skull, the eyebrow ridges of males tend to be more prominent, as are the various bulges around the base of the cranium where the neck muscles are attached. These differences are only in degree, they are not absolutely reliable and there are plenty of examples of 'feminine' male skulls and vice versa. A forensic scientist should therefore always give a confidence level for any identification. The same applies to racial differences. Such differences exist but as with sex differences there is a lot of individual variation. In a country like the US where there has been racial mixing for many generations, it is even more difficult to make such determinations with confidence and most forensic scientists would not attempt to do so from bones. There are many high school and undergraduate level textbooks which cover the human skeleton in great detail, and forensic science courses with accompanying literature are becoming increasingly popular. I'm afraid I do not know the titles of any recent publications, but you should be able to find some by asking in a large bookstore, or searching Amazon. As regards the sharing of DNA and blood groups by Native American tribes, I am not sure which relationship you are referring to. The relatedness of groups of people, and the length of time they have been separated can be studied by comparing their DNA and blood groups, and if people have the opportunity or necessity to migrate within a large area such as N America, it would not be surprising to find widely spaced examples of closely related groups. You can learn more about such questions by watching serious science magazines such as Scientific American and New Scientist. I say 'watching' rather than 'reading', because you don't need to read them from cover to cover every week. Just look at the contents page, and decide whether there is anything which interests you in that issue. Archaeological magazines will also contain articles about forensic studies and the migrations of tribes. Nobody is too old to do a PhD !
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