Disparate and parallel craniofacial climatic adaptations in native populations of Asia, North America, and South America.

ABSTRACT: Understanding the impact that climate had in shaping cranial variation is critical for inferring the evolutionary mechanisms that played a role in human diversification. Here, we provide a comprehensive study aiming to analyze the association between climate and cranial variation of high latitude populations living in temperate to cold environments of Asia, North America, and South America. For this, we compiled a large morphometric dataset (N = 2633), which was combined with climatic and genomic data. We tested the influence of climate on the facial skeleton, nasal protrusion, and cranial vault and through multiple statistical tests at two geographical scales: intracontinental and intercontinental. We show that populations living in cold areas share a morphological pattern characterized b

SUBMITTER: Evteev A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11470782 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature