Physical variation and history in Melanesia and Australia

Datos Bibliográficos

ID8312259
AutoresW W Howells (Harvard University, autor de correspondencia)
Año1976
Volumen45
Número3
Páginas641-649
Fecha de publicación1976-11-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaAmerican Journal of Physical Anthropology (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0002-9483 • E-ISSN: 1096-8644
EditorialWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1002/ajpa.1330450330
PMID998759
OpenAlexW1981956406
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas26
Referencias citadas11

Local biological variation is marked in Melanesia. Some of it may result from gene flow from Micronesia, but the essential variation appears to result from isolation due to social fragmentation, and to genetic drift in place. In different regions, the variation may correspond well with language relationships, and probably constitutes differentiation which has been preserved over a considerable period, especially since the arrival of horticulture and development of village farming. However, none of this patterning suggests distinct waves of migration into Melanesia. Variation among Australian aboriginal groups is smaller, though far from absent. It may reflect a hunting culture together with social customs allowing more intertribal marriage than is typical of Melanesia. While phenotypically Australians and Melanesians differ, cranially they are closely allied, as against other major human groups. It is suggested that the genetic and phenotypic variety is old, that it existed in the previous home of the Australo‐Melanesians (Old Melanesia, comprising present Indonesia and the Phillipines) at least back to 40,000 years ago, and that much of the variation in Melanesia and Australia, including their differences, results from the sampling process involved when different groups out of the original populations made early crossings of the water barriers from Old Melanesia

Biology · Ethnology · Evolutionary biology · Fragmentation (computing) · Genealogy · Genetic variation · Geography · Population · Regional variation · Sociology · Variation (astronomy) · Australian Indigenous Culture and History · Demography · Ecology · History · Marine animal studies overview · Pacific and Southeast Asian Studies