paleoethnography and kinship

[ltallier]

Hi,
    Being somewhat new to this area, I am curious if anyone can suggest reading material primarily centered around paleoethnograpy and kinship.  Also, I have been unable to find any reference to the use of mtDNA to determine family relationships with regards to archaic man.  Does anyone know if such research is being/has been done?
thanks
Tallier

[Jacques Cinq-Mars]

Hi,
     Being somewhat new to this area, I am curious if anyone can suggest reading material primarily centered around paleoethnograpy and kinship.

For starters, you might want to try the following (and References Cited therein):

Ives, J.W. 1998. Developmental processes in the pre-contact history of Athapaskan, Algonquian, and Numic kin systems, pp 94-139 in Transformation of Kinship, edited by M. Godelier, T.R. Trautmann, and F.E. Tjon Sie Fat. Smithsonian Institute Press, Washington.

Ives, J.W. 1999. A theory of Northern Athapaskan prehistory.  Calgary: University of Calgary Press (Investigations in American archaeology).

Also, I have been unable to find any reference to the use of mtDNA to determine family relationships with regards to archaic man.

Neither have I. But I am sure that getting access to and reading some of the material Google can come up with -- on mtDNA analysis and other similar of "molecular" studies -- will help you understand why such references a so difficult to come by.

Good luck.

Jacques Cinq-Mars

[ltallier]

Thanks

[Greg Laden]

Kinship patterns can be grossly examined by comparing mtDNA and y-chromosome DNA variation (in relation to each other).

Here are a few references that relate to this idea directly or indirectly. There are many more but this is a start:

Ghiani, M. E., M. C. Calo, et al. (2002). "New Data on the Genetic Structure of the Population of Sicily: Analysis of the Alia Population (Palermo, Italy)." American Journal of Human Biology 14: 289-299.

Gonzalez Jose, R., C. Garcia-Moro, et al. (2002). "Origin of Fueguian-Patagonians: An Approach to Population History and Structure Using R Matrix and Matrix Permutation Methods." American Journal of Human Biology 14: 308-320.

Hanotte, O., D. G. Bradley, et al. (2002). "African Pastoralism: Genetic Imprints of Origins and Migrations." Science 296: 336-339.

Oota, H., T. Kitano, et al. (2002). "Extreme mtDNA homogeneity in continental Asian populations." American Journal of Physical Anthropology 118: 146-153.

Storz, J. F. and M. A. Beaumont (2002). "Testing for genetic evidence of population expansion and contraction: an empirical analysis of microsatellite DNA variation using hierarchical bayesian model." Evolution 56(1): 154-166.

Williams, S. R., N. A. Chagnon, et al. (2002). "Nuclear and Mitochondrial Genetic Variation in the Yanomamo: A Test Case for Ancient DNA Studies of Prehistoric Populations." American Journal of Physical Anthropology 117: 246-259.