Genetic Population Structure of the Black Caribs and Creoles

Abstract

In recent years, reduced-space least squares representations of the distri­bution of gene frequencies have come to be a standard method available to human population geneticists (Cannings and Cavalli-Sforza, 1973; Jorde, 1980). Such representations, derived from the spectral decomposition of matrices of normalized gene frequency covariances, are referred to as genetic structures (Harpending and Jenkins, 1974; Workman, et al., 1973). However, these so-called “genetic maps” are of limited evolutionary significance unless accompanied by information independent of the allelic frequencies, such as patterns of demo­graphic, environmental, or historical factors (Workman etal., 1976; Harpending and Ward, 1982). For the most part, since the processes creating the observed gene frequency patterns have usually been in place for at most only a few generations, the requisite independent data consist of written or verbal histories.