Gene Flow at Paquime: Cranial Non-Metric Approaches to Regional Social Interactions

Summary

The origins of the Casas Grandes phenomenon remain an essential, if elusive pursuit for Southwest/Northwest archaeologists. The explanations are numerous, and include migrations, in-situ development, local emulation of prestigious Mesoamerican traits, and several different combinations therein. In this study, a series of biodistance analyses are conducted using different cranial and dental metric and non-metric traits. Several hypothesized sources of migrants and cultural transmission are compared to Viejo period and Medio period skeletal samples to investigate patterns of prehistoric gene flow, and to examine how they change during the Medio period transition. Routes of transit between sites are calculated by least cost and waterway analyses to control for patterns of isolation by distance.

R-Matrix analyses suggest several meaningful patterns. First, Paquime is more phenotypically similar to West Mexican and Mimbres populations than would be expected based upon geographic distances. Second, Paquime has greater than expected phenotypic variance when compared to Viejo and other regional Southwestern populations. Lastly, these patterns appear to differ when conducting analyses by sex, indicating patterns of migration or exogamy. The implications for understanding the development of Paquime, and its interactions with late prehistoric Northwest and Southwest groups are considered.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 81st Annual Meeting, Orlando, FL (2016)   •
• Current Bioarchaeological Research in the Casas Grandes Region

Keywords

Spatial Coverage