Dental Genetics and Microevolution in Prehistoric and Living Koniag Eskimo

¹ University of California, Berkeley, California

Quantitative genetics has been applied to dental crown features with previously and newly suggested modes of inheritance to illustrate how hereditary models can be tested by population means. To demonstrate that this procedure is useful for dental anthropology, an historical problem was considered.

Gene frequency comparisons for Carabelli's trait, the protostylid, and shovel-shaped incisors of prehistoric and living Kodiak Island Eskimo and Europeans (American Caucasians) showed living Koniag to have frequencies in all three traits intermediate between those of Caucasians and prehistoric Kodiak natives. Admixture from Caucasian sources is offered as an explanation, which agrees with independent serological and historical evidence.