Abstract
Researchers commonly rely on human dental morphological features in order to reconstruct genetic affinities among past individuals and populations, particularly since teeth are often the best preserved part of a human skeleton. Tooth form is considered to be highly heritable and selectively neutral and, therefore, to be an excellent proxy for DNA when none is available. However, until today, it remains poorly understood whether certain dental traits or trait combinations preserve neutral genomic signatures to a greater degree than others. Here, we address this long-standing research gap by systematically testing the utility of 27 common dental traits and >134 million possible trait combinations in reflecting neutral genomic variation in a worldwide sample of modern human populations. Our analyses reveal that not all traits are equally well-suited for reconstructing population affinities. Whereas some traits largely reflect neutral variation and therefore evolved primarily as a result of genetic drift, others can be linked to nonstochastic processes such as natural selection or hominin admixture. We also demonstrate that reconstructions of population affinity based on many traits are not necessarily more reliable than those based on only a few traits. Importantly, we find a set of highly diagnostic trait combinations that preserve neutral genetic signals best (up to x~r = 0.580; 95% r range = 0.293 to 0.758; P = 0.001). We propose that these trait combinations should be prioritized in future research, as they allow for more accurate inferences about past human population dynamics when using dental morphology as a proxy for DNA.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 10769-10777 |
| Number of pages | 9 |
| Journal | Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America |
| Volume | 117 |
| Issue number | 20 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - May 19 2020 |
Bibliographical note
Publisher Copyright:© 2020 National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.
Funding
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS. This work was funded by the German Research Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft [DFG] FOR 2237: Project “Words, Bones, Genes, Tools: Tracking Linguistic, Cultural, and Biological Trajectories of the Human Past”). We are grateful to Katerina Harvati for support and advice in providing the necessary computational resources for our analyses, performed at the Laboratory of Virtual Anthropology and Morphometrics and the Paleoanthropology High-Resolution Computing Tomography Laboratory, University of Tübingen, funded in part by the Senck-enberg Nature Research Society and the German Research Foundation (DFG Major Instrumentation Grant INST 37/706-1). We thank Patrícia Santos for assistance with data preparation, as well as Andrea Benazzo and Silvia Ghirotto for discussing the programming code. This work was funded by the German Research Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft [DFG] FOR 2237: Project ?Words, Bones, Genes, Tools: Tracking Linguistic, Cultural, and Biological Trajectories of the Human Past?). We are grateful to Katerina Harvati for support and advice in providing the necessary computational resources for our analyses, performed at the Laboratory of Virtual Anthropology and Morphometrics and the Paleoanthropology High-Resolution Computing Tomography Laboratory, University of T?bingen, funded in part by the Senckenberg Nature Research Society and the German Research Foundation (DFG Major Instrumentation Grant INST 37/706-1). We thank Patr?cia Santos for assistance with data preparation, as well as Andrea Benazzo and Silvia Ghirotto for discussing the programming code.
| Funders | Funder number |
|---|---|
| Senck-enberg Nature Research Society | INST 37/706-1 |
| Senckenberg Society for Nature Research | |
| Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft | FOR 2237 |
| Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft | |
| Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen |
Keywords
- ASUDAS
- Bioarchaeology
- Biodistance
- Dental morphology
- Genetic drift
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- General