"An ‘exponential growth of science’ throughout modern history has been frequently boasted by numerous narcissistic accounts of ‘modern humanity.’ Nonetheless, ‘modern science’ seems to have overwhelmingly compromised on its original promises by fitting into an ‘industrial scheme.’ With this concern, ‘molecular phylogeographics with conservational ambitions’ would look an intact ground for research efforts in a ‘school of biotechnology.’ The dog (Canis familiaris) as an earliest domestic animal has a history of conflicts over its origins and dispersal. Having those disputes addressed, valuable knowledge could be acquired on the nature and dynamics of domestication, and of human societies particularly of pre-agricultural ages. We employed two most widely-used genealogical markers, the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) and the non-recombining portion of the Y-chromosome (NRY), to address dog demography. Through 582 bps of mtDNA Control Region, complemented with whole mitochondrial genomes, it was established that almost all maternal lineages of the domestic dog worldwide coalesce to a population of at least 51 and perhaps many more female wolves in Asia South of Yangtze River (ASY) approximately 16,000 years before present (BP). This was based on the presence of a maximal diversity in this area, a descending gradient of diversity outward it, and a ubiquitous population structure everywhere in the world. A closer examination of this portrait in Southwest Asia (SwAsia) and the Fertile Crescent (FC), a region which has supplied persuasive evidence on early presence of the domestic dog, retrieved the same information, with implications for backbreeding with the local wolf population. Meanwhile, analyses of mtDNA dispersal showed that dogs took the long way via land to Madagascar Island, and not together with humans via sea. By the other approach, the NRY data in 14,437 bps length supplemented the mtDNA in reporting the height of diversity from ASY with a founding population of at least 13 male wolves, but expectably produced lower inter-regional differentiation by diversity. Screening of NRY by a SNP assay in the dingoes of Australia Island as a population of feral dogs revealed restricted and similar dispersal patterns for sires and dams. Prospects of ancient, multilocus and whole genome assays with the emerging high-throughput technologies has still more to promise on finer elaborations of these issues." / <p>QC 20120529</p>

The South Pacific is a region of incredible biological, cultural and linguistic diversity, reflecting its early settlement by human populations. It has been a region of interest to scholars because of this diversity, as well as its unique geography and settlement history. Current evidence suggests there was an initial settlement of Near Oceania during the Pleistocene by Papuan-speaking foragers, followed by a later Holocene settlement of Remote Oceania by Oceanic-speaking agriculturalists. Previous studies of human biological variation have been used to illuminate the migration history of and population relationships within Oceania. In this study, I analyzed Y-chromosome (NRY) diversity in 842 unrelated males to more fully characterize the phylogeography of paternal genetic lineages in this region, using a large number of regionally informative markers on an intensive sample set from Northern Island Melanesia. This approach facilitated an analysis of NRY haplogroup distributions, an evaluation of the ancestral paternal genetic contribution to the region, and a comparison of regional NRY diversity with that observed at different genetic loci (e.g., mtDNA). This project is part of a collaborative effort by faculty and graduate students from the Temple University Department of Anthropology that focused on characterizing biological variation and genetic structure in Melanesia, and better resolving the phylogeographic specificity of Northern Island Melanesia. Overall, this study generated a higher resolution view of NRY haplogroup variation than detected in previous studies through the use of newly defined and very informative SNP markers. It also showed that there is a very small ancestral East Asian paternal contribution to this area, and a rather large proportion of older Melanesian NRY lineages present there. In addition, this study observed extraordinary NRY diversity within Northern Island Melanesia, as well as genetic structure influenced more by geography than linguistic variation. This structure and diversity was essentially equivalent to that noted for mtDNA data for this region. Finally, this study helped to resolve questions about the placement of the 50f2/c deletion within the larger NRY tree. Overall, this work has refined our understanding of the migration and demographic history of Northern Island Melanesia. / Anthropology

This doctoral thesis is submitted in the form of science publications with impact factor and presents human biological variation in two different ways. The first part is the study of phenotype variation focused on the degree of limb bones bilateral asymmetry. Besides genetic and hormonal factors asymmetry may develop as a response to biomechanical and to environmental factors influencing the individual/population. Therefore this trait can be considered as a measure of person's living conditions, health or environmental stress of different origin or exa- mine the effects of behavioral distinctions as sexual division of labor and diffe- rences in subsistence strategy. The submitted publication (Kujanová et al., 2008) is based on samples of two diachronic populations (medieval and recent) from Bohe- mia with different expected levels of health/environmental stress. The study is fo- cused especially on these aspects that may be indicative of various stresses, such as malnutrition or other nonspecific factors influencing health of persons living in the studied populations. According to the results we propose that bilateral asymmetry observed in the diachronic populations showed some differences supporting the theory that the medieval population was not subjected to as highly stressful condi- tions as the...