Anthropometric variation in West-Central Mexico

Abstract

Anthropometric data from five indigenous Mexican groups, collected by Carlos and Manuel Basauri in 1933, were reanalyzed and compared with serological and cranial non-metric data. Ten cranial and 14 postcranial measurements were used, both separately and together. Bias-corrected r0 and FST values were slightly higher for the postcranial analysis (0.033) than for the cranial analysis (0.024). Given the degree of linguistic differentiation among the Mexican populations, not to mention the different histories of the communities sampled, this result is surprisingly low. The two groups which were closest linguistically and geographically, the Cora and Huichol, were also close biologically. The other three groups, Tarascan, Aztecan, and Otomi, were not closely related to each other or to the Cora-Huichol pair. More interesting than the relationship between populations in this case are those within them. The Aztecas of Tuxpan, Jalisco, exhibit high rii values and lower-than-expected phenotypic variance, suggesting the pronounced action of genetic drift. The Otomi of Ixmiquilpan and Cora of the Sierra de Nayarit, despite their very different histories, both exhibit low rii values and higher-than-expected phenotypic variance, indicating a high level of gene flow. Despite the phenotypic similarities between the Cora and Huichol, their residual variance is very different; this mirrors serological investigations of relative admixture. Over all, recent population history, and especially non-indigenous admixture, are at least as explicative of the observed biological variation as historical linguistic ties are.