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Model-bound and Model-free approaches in the holistic analysis of population structure: Example from the Island of Brač, Croatia

Within the framework of holistic anthropological investigations of rural populations of eastern Adriatic, Croatia, various measures of biological distances (anthropometrical body and head distances, physiological, odonthometric, dermatoglyphic and radiogrammetric bone distances), socio-cultural (linguistic) and bio-cultural distances (kinship coefficient estimated from migrational data) between inhabitants of eleven villages of the Island of Brač, Croatia were calculated. The model-bound (Malecot"s isolation by distance) and the model-free approach (analysis of the structure of rank-correlation matrices among different distance measures) were applied. The results revealed a very poor "fit" of the analyzed traits to the isolation by distance model, with the exception of migrational kinship in males and females, and anthropometric body distances in females. Factor analysis over distance matrices outlined four factors in both sexes. In males, first factor (explaining 25.8% of total variance) grouped quantitative and qualitative dermatoglyphic traits with radiogrammetric bone distances, while the "factor of geographic distance" was extracted as the fourth one, explaining only 11.4% of total variance. In females, however, the "factor of geographic distance" was the most important one, explaining 28.5% of total variance. The authors discuss and compare the application of model-bound and model-free approach in the study of population structure, stressing the dependence of the rate of (micro)evolutionary processes upon the historical processes that favored or restricted gene flow. Results of different processes of homogenization and/or selective inertia were discussed, on strictly biological, bio-cultural and socio-cultural traits in the formation of population structure.

population structure, biological distances, linguistic distances, migrational kinship, isolation by distance, factor analysis, island of Brač, Croatia, anthropology, population genetics

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