Who were the ancient Egyptians? Dental affinities among Neolithic through postdynastic peoples

Abstract

Qualitative and quantitative methods are employed to describe and compare up to 36 dental morphological variants in 15 Neolithic through Roman-period Egyptian samples. Trait frequencies are determined, and phenetic affinities are calculated using the mean measure of divergence and Mahalanobis D2 statistics for discrete traits; the most important traits in generating this intersample variation are identified with correspondence analysis. Assuming that the samples are representative of the populations from which they derive, and that phenetic similarity provides an estimate of genetic relatedness, these affinities are suggestive of overall population continuity. That is, other than a few outliers exhibiting extreme frequencies of nine influential traits, the dental samples appear to be largely homogenous and can be characterized as having morphologically simple, mass-reduced teeth. These findings are contrasted with those resulting from previous skeletal and other studies, and are used to appraise the viability of five Egyptian peopling scenarios. Specifically, affinities among the 15 time-successive samples suggest that: 1) there may be a connection between Neolithic and subsequent predynastic Egyptians, 2) predynastic Badarian and Naqada peoples may be closely related, 3) the dynastic period is likely an indigenous continuation of the Naqada culture, 4) there is support for overall biological uniformity through the dynastic period, and 5) this uniformity may continue into postdynastic times.

Sahara: Barrier or corridor? Nonmetric cranial traits and biological affinities of North African late holocene populations

“…Problems also appear for geographically distant populations. For example, the low biodistances between the Alexandrians and Soleb (MMD 5 0.05, D 2 5 2.1) may be attributed to the long relationships between Egypt and Nubia and the fact that the Nile River formed a corridor that facilitated population contacts (Williams, 1997;Irish, 2006;Edwards, 2007;Schillaci et al, 2009). It is, however, striking and difficult to explain why this link apparently excluded the Gizeh and Soleb (MMD 5 0.27, D 2 5 4.5).…”

“…In the cases where negative MMD values were obtained, these were converted to 0 (Harris and Sjøvold, 2004;Irish, 2006;Sutter and Verano, 2007;Irish, 2010). At this point we should clarify that negative MMD values imply that the biological distance between two populations is very small.…”

Do nuclear DNA and dental nonmetric data produce similar reconstructions of regional population history? An example from modern coastal Kenya

“…Many regional studies examine populations within a single country (e.g., Guatelli-Steinberg et al, 2001), region of a country (e.g., Hubbard, 2012), or bordering countries (e.g., Ullinger et al, 2005). As noted by Buikstra et al (1990), this more refined focus is common in the 5" " bioarchaeological literature and is reflected in an array of more recent publications (e.g., see Blom et al, 1998;Irish, 2006;Coppa et al, 2007;Sołtysiak and Bialon., 2013;Willermet et al, 2013;Irish et al, 2014). Such regional studies often focus on understanding mobility patterns (e.g., McIlvaine et al, 2014), trading networks (Ragsdale and Edgar, 2014), and other social phenomena (e.g., see Knudson and Stojanowski, 2008).…”

News and views: Response to ‘Non-metric dental traits and hominin phylogeny’ by Carter et al., with additional information on the Arizona State University Dental Anthropology System and phylogenetic ‘place’ of Australopithecus sediba

“…Below we summarize and reply to the eight objections of They are correct. Among-group ASUDAS variation is ordinarily quantified using trait frequencies (Scott and Turner, 1997;Irish, 2005Irish, , 2006. For that, suitable sample sizes are necessary, a shortcoming in fossil studies.…”