The Trials of the Cherokee Were Reflected In Their Skulls
Source: heritagedaily.com
Researchers from North Carolina State University and the University of Tennessee have found that environmental stressors – from the Trail of Tears to the Civil War – led to significant changes in the shape of skulls in the eastern and western bands of the Cherokee people.
The findings highlight the role of environmental factors in shaping our physical characteristics.
“We wanted to look at these historically important events and further our understanding of the tangible human impacts they had on the Cherokee people,” says Dr. Ann Ross, a professor of anthropology at NC State and co-author of a paper describing the work. “This work also adds to the body of literature on environmental effects on skull growth.”
The researchers drew on historical data collected by Franz Boas in the late 19th century. Boas collected measurements of the length (front-to-back) and breadth of skulls for many Native American tribes, including hundreds of members of the eastern and western bands of Cherokee.
The researchers analyzed the data, looking only at adults and organizing the adults by year of birth, which ranged from 1783 to 1874. The year of birth, a critical piece of information, provided clues to stressors in an individual’s life. For example, the western band of the Cherokee was subject to the Trail of Tears in 1838, inter-tribal warfare in the West, disease epidemics, and the U.S. Civil War from 1861 to 1865.
The researchers found that head length decreased over time in both bands, for males and females.
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Read the full article at: heritagedaily.com
READ: Americans’ Skulls Getting Bigger
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