TY - JOUR
T1 - Sensitivity of Dental Phenotypic Data for the Identification of Biological Relatives
AU - Stojanowski, C. M.
AU - Hubbard, A. R.
N1 - Funding Information:
Sample collection was supported by the US Department of Education through a Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad grant (P022A090029), a Wenner-Gren Foundation Dissertation Fieldwork grant (7962) and The Ohio State University Graduate School. All grants were awarded to A. R. H.
Funding Information:
This research could not have been completed without the cooperation of many people in Kenya, including but not limited to the participants, Mr. Antony Mwambanga Juma (research assistant in Taita Hills), Mr. Yusuf Muhaji Badru (research assistant on Swahili Coast) and the four communities in which research was conducted. Thank you also to the editors and reviewers of this article for their feedback. This study was conducted with permission from ethical review boards in the USA (IRB) and Kenya (National Council for Science and Technology). The permanent collection of dental casts is housed at the second author's home institution, Wright State University. Sample collection was supported by the US Department of Education through a Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad grant (P022A090029), a Wenner-Gren Foundation Dissertation Fieldwork grant (7962) and The Ohio State University Graduate School. All grants were awarded to A.?R.?H.
Funding Information:
This research could not have been completed without the cooperation of many people in Kenya, including but not limited to the participants, Mr. Antony Mwambanga Juma (research assistant in Taita Hills), Mr. Yusuf Muhaji Badru (research assistant on Swahili Coast) and the four communities in which research was conducted. Thank you also to the editors and reviewers of this article for their feedback. This study was conducted with permission from ethical review boards in the USA (IRB) and Kenya (National Council for Science and Technology). The permanent collection of dental casts is housed at the second author’s home institution, Wright State University.
Publisher Copyright:
Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
PY - 2017/9/1
Y1 - 2017/9/1
N2 - Using modern samples of known kin, this paper evaluates two fundamental aspects of kinship analysis in archaeological contexts: (1) choice of data (dental metrics or morphology) and (2) analytical approach (multivariate, distance-based approach or a ‘rare trait’ analysis). Stone dental casts were analysed from 155 female individuals from four sampling locations in Kenya. Of these 155 individuals, only three pairs were close kin: mother–daughter, sister–sister, and first-cousin–first-cousin dyads. After variable winnowing, inter-individual distances or similarities were calculated using 11 odontometric variables and 25 dental morphological variables. Resulting distance matrices were ordinated in two dimensions using multidimensional scaling. Odontometric data performed relatively well at identifying known relative pairs, but the results were heavily affected by choice of similarity measure (e.g. Euclidean distances vs. Gower coefficients) and pre-analysis data treatments (e.g. raw data vs. principal components). Dental morphological data performed comparably with odontometric data but were slightly less effective. Rare traits were identified and compared among relative pairs for concordance, with mixed results. Rare morphological features were randomly distributed throughout the population and were not exclusively found in close kin. In combination, results indicated the sister–sister dyad was most consistently identified; however, in no analysis were relatives more phenotypically similar than all random pairs of unrelated individuals. A multivariate, distance-based approach was more effective than rare traits at identifying relative pairs, but even under ideal circumstances, there is not enough variation present in the dentition to faithfully identify close relatives in the absence of contextual archaeological data.
AB - Using modern samples of known kin, this paper evaluates two fundamental aspects of kinship analysis in archaeological contexts: (1) choice of data (dental metrics or morphology) and (2) analytical approach (multivariate, distance-based approach or a ‘rare trait’ analysis). Stone dental casts were analysed from 155 female individuals from four sampling locations in Kenya. Of these 155 individuals, only three pairs were close kin: mother–daughter, sister–sister, and first-cousin–first-cousin dyads. After variable winnowing, inter-individual distances or similarities were calculated using 11 odontometric variables and 25 dental morphological variables. Resulting distance matrices were ordinated in two dimensions using multidimensional scaling. Odontometric data performed relatively well at identifying known relative pairs, but the results were heavily affected by choice of similarity measure (e.g. Euclidean distances vs. Gower coefficients) and pre-analysis data treatments (e.g. raw data vs. principal components). Dental morphological data performed comparably with odontometric data but were slightly less effective. Rare traits were identified and compared among relative pairs for concordance, with mixed results. Rare morphological features were randomly distributed throughout the population and were not exclusively found in close kin. In combination, results indicated the sister–sister dyad was most consistently identified; however, in no analysis were relatives more phenotypically similar than all random pairs of unrelated individuals. A multivariate, distance-based approach was more effective than rare traits at identifying relative pairs, but even under ideal circumstances, there is not enough variation present in the dentition to faithfully identify close relatives in the absence of contextual archaeological data.
KW - East Africa
KW - biodistance analysis
KW - dental anthropology
KW - dental morphology
KW - kinship
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U2 - 10.1002/oa.2596
DO - 10.1002/oa.2596
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85026381555
SN - 1047-482X
VL - 27
SP - 813
EP - 827
JO - International Journal of Osteoarchaeology
JF - International Journal of Osteoarchaeology
IS - 5
ER -