MORPHOLOGICAL AFFINITIES OF THE 1ST AMERICANS - AN EXPLORATORY ANALYSIS BASED ON EARLY SOUTH-AMERICAN HUMAN REMAINS

The cranial morphology of early South American human remains are compared with Late Pleistocene and Early Holocene worldwide human morphological variation by means of a principal components analysis applied to 13 craniometric variables. Two modern Mongoloid populations and one Australoid population were also included as controls. The morphological affinities obtained showed evidence of a marked biological similarity between early South Americans and early and modern Australians, and a considerable distance between both populations and the Mongoloid groups used as control. These results call for more detailed investigations about human micro-evolution in the Americas, including time of entry and number of migrations involved. © 1991.