Balkan region: An analysis of craniofacial variation

Regional isolation in the Balkan region: An analysis of craniofacial variation

American Journal of Physical Anthropology
Regional isolation in the Balkan region: An analysis of craniofacial variation
Ann H. Ross
Published Online: 20 Aug 2003
DOI: 10.1002/ajpa.10339
Abstract

Biological variation is investigated among contemporary Croatians, Bosnians, American whites, and other multitemporal Balkan populations (World War II Croatians, Macedonians, and Greeks) via multivariate statistics and distance measures of the craniofacial complex. This study demonstrates that there is considerable variation among groups of European ancestry. Bosnians and Croatians who are thought to be relatively homogenous and historically to originate from the same Slav ancestry show local variations. While environmental plasticity has been used to explain cranial changes among human groups, it does not adequately explain the variation observed between Bosnians and Croatians. It is an oversimplification to exclusively attribute the vast range of variability observed among local as well as geographic populations to environmental adaptations.
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The recent Balkan samples utilized in this study derive from several sources and time periods, and are composed only of male individuals. The Bosnian data total 101, are casualties from the recent war, and are from the northwestern border with Croatia and along the eastern border with Serbia. These individuals are stored at the Komemorativni Centar in Tuzla, Bosnia. The contemporary Croatian cranial samples (N = 53) are also from the recent war and are from the eastern, western, and southern regions of Croatia. The World War II (WWII) Croatian cranial sample (Croat45), curated in the Department of Forensic Pathology at the University of Zagreb (Croatia), totals 23 individuals of unknown provenience. The Greek (N = 18) and Macedonian (N = 8) samples are from the Von Luschan Collection, curated at the American Museum of Natural History. Specific information regarding the provenience of the Greek and Macedonian specimens is limited, however. Generally, all that is known is the location and date of acquisition of the remains. The Greek sample is from a modern Greek cemetery in Adalia (present-day city of Antalya, Turkey). The Macedonian sample is from the region of Yanitsa. The American white data were obtained from the Forensic Data Bank housed at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville (Ousley and Jantz, [1997]). The American white sample is comprised of individuals derived from forensic cases, and donated skeletal materials that were reported by a range of academic and research institutions and forensic laboratories around the US. The American white sample used in this investigation totals 151 males. Sample composition is presented in Table 1.
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D2 values are presented in Table 4. It is evident that the populations that are furthest removed from the rest are Macedonians and Greeks. Among the recent Balkan populations, Bosnians are closer to WWII Croatians than to contemporary Croatians. Interestingly, American whites are closest to Greeks, and then to Macedonians, WWII Croatians, and Croatians, followed by Bosnians. Greeks and Macedonians are not significantly different.
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The plot of CAN1 and CAN2 using transformed shape variables shows American whites as having long, narrow, and high cranial vaults with narrow faces. Greeks and Macedonians have long and narrow vaults with narrow faces, but contrast with American whites in that they have very low cranial vaults. Croatians, by contrast, have broad, short, and high cranial vaults, and broad faces. Bosnians and WWII Croatians have relatively broad, short, and low cranial vaults. Conversely, contemporary Croatians show the highest cranial vaults in contrast to all other groups.
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Traditionally, people of European ancestry are lumped into a general category of "white" for typological or classification purposes. The results show that American whites differ strongly from Croatian, Bosnians, and other Balkan populations. The cranial difference between American whites and the European groups suggests that identification criteria based on American whites (e.g., discriminant functions) should not be broadly applied to Balkan groups or other groups of European ancestry.
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