engleski

A More Detailed Look at Fluctuating Asymmetry in Anthropology

Studies of fluctuating asymmetry (FA) face serious challenges-theoretical as well as methodological ones. This has resulted in a "furious activity and an increasingly bewildering array of analytical methods" (Palmer and Strobeck 2001) within the last decade. We compare and evaluate different approaches so as to present an orientation of their potentials and their flaws. The biological questions we explore derive from the concept that FA (manifest as random departures from billateraly symmetry) reflects disruptive effects of environmental and genetic stresses, and therefore provides a useful measure of developmental precision. As a sensitive indicator of an individual's ability to cope with there stresses during ontogeny, FA is hypothetically linked with phenotypic and genetic quality, and shall covary positively with inbreeding and negatively with physical attractiveness. As material we have: (1) dental casts from 222 children from a Croatian island population, having inbred in fragmented community for centuries, and (2) photographs of 100 women in standardized views, along with attractiveness ratings for each image. Our data sets consist of landmark coordinates of (1) the upper and lower dental arches, and (2) cranial as well as postcranial somatometric points. We discuss the results relating to the linking hypotheses and in the light of the current methodological debate (Supported by the Austrian Federal ministry of Education, Science and Culture, Austrian Council for Science and Technology ; Project Nr:200.049/3-VI/I/2001 and by Ministy of Science and Technology of the Republic of Croatia ; Project Nr: 0196001).

fluctuating asymmetry; dental arch; face; Croatia

nije evidentirano