engleski

Reality and Perception in Molecular Anthropological Studies of Population Structure

The evaluation of influences of hereditary (intrinsic) and environmental (extrinsic) factors is reflected differently through phenotype of various human populations. This is why today the questions on the formation of population structure of a group are still topical. The overview of definitions of population structure given by demographers, geneticists and anthropologists show how present evaluations are still based on analyses of different sets of biological features, among which the molecular analyses are, after all, the most competent, as far as genetic structure is concerned. However, the anthropological definition considers also the much-needed notion of culture – all what is transferred from one generation to another by non biological means. On the several examples of Croatian populations, as convenient models for studying population structure, the shaping of human populations is presented as a reflection of historical processes, which are laboratories for their formation. Diversity of current findings is explained by migrational waves, different intensity of reproductive isolation and the reflection of historical layers. They are especially evident through a certain degree of congruity between linguistic and genetic distinctiveness. The reflection of the centuries of reproductive isolation (which is clearly evident on village inhabitants of eastern Adriatic), offers a possibility to apply the holistic analytic approach in the population structure studies.

Anthropology; Population structure; Microevolution; Historical migrations; Genetic epidemiology

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