Tracking modern human population history from linguistic and cranial phenotype.
Languages and genes arguably follow parallel evolutionary trajectories, descending from a common source and subsequently differentiating. However, although common ancestry is established within language families, it remains controversial whether language preserves a deep historical signal. To address this question, we evaluate the association between linguistic and geographic distances across 265 language families, as well as between linguistic, geographic, and cranial distances among eleven populations from Africa, Asia, and Australia. We take advantage of differential population history signals reflected by human cranial anatomy, where temporal bone shape reliably tracks deep population history and neutral genetic changes, while facial shape is more strongly associated with recent environmental effects. We show that linguistic distances are strongly geographically patterned, even within widely dispersed groups. However, they are correlated predominantly with facial, rather than temporal bone, morphology, suggesting that variation in vocabulary likely tracks relatively recent events and possibly population contact.
Paleoanthropology, Senckenberg Center for Human Evolution and Paleoenvironment, Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen, Rümelinstraße 23, D-72070 Tübingen, Germany.|DFG Center for Advanced Studies ''Words, Bones, Genes, Tools'', Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen, Rümelinstraße 23, D-72070 Tübingen, Germany.
Hugo
H
Reyes-Centeno
Paleoanthropology, Senckenberg Center for Human Evolution and Paleoenvironment, Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen, Rümelinstraße 23, D-72070 Tübingen, Germany.|DFG Center for Advanced Studies ''Words, Bones, Genes, Tools'', Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen, Rümelinstraße 23, D-72070 Tübingen, Germany.
Katerina
K
Harvati
DFG Center for Advanced Studies ''Words, Bones, Genes, Tools'', Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen, Rümelinstraße 23, D-72070 Tübingen, Germany.|Department of Linguistics, Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen, Wilhelmstraße 19, D-72074 Tübingen, Germany.
Gerhard
G
Jäger
D000328:Adult; D001106:Archaeology; D005147:Facial Bones / Q000033:anatomy & histology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007802:Language; D008297:Male; D013701:Temporal Bone / Q000033:anatomy & histology*