Biological affinities and adaptations of Bronze Age Bactrians: III. An initial craniometric assessment.
Discovery of a previously unknown Bronze Age civilization (Oxus Civilization) centered on the oases of Central Asia immediately raised questions concerning the origin and interregional impacts of this civilization. Fifteen craniometric variables from 12 Bronze Age samples--encompassing 544 adults from Central Asia, Iran, the Indus Valley, and Anatolia--are compared to test which, if any, of the current hypotheses offered by archaeologists are best supported by the pattern of phenetic affinities possessed by the Oxus Civilization inhabitants of the north Bactrian oasis. Craniometric differences between samples are compared with Mahalanobis generalized distance, and patterns of phenetic affinity are assessed with two types of cluster analysis (WPGMA, neighbor-joining method), multidimensional scaling, and principal coordinates analysis. Results obtained by this analysis indicate that current hypotheses for both the origin and interregional impacts of Oxus Civilization populations are incomplete.
Department of Anthropology, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee 37235, USA. hemphibe@ctrvax.vanderbilt.edu
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D000328:Adult; D000885:Anthropology, Physical; D001208:Asia; D001699:Biometry; D005260:Female; D005580:Fossils; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D012886:Skull / Q000033:anatomy & histology*