A Debreceni Déri Múzeum Évkönyve 1986 (Debrecen, 1987)

Természettudomány - Juhász, Lajos–Bozsko, Szvetlana: The Ornithofauna of Debrecen II. Synecological Analysis

Szathmáry, László An Attempt at the Allowance for Human Genetic Aspects at the Quantitative Comparison of Craniological Samples (The Segregation of a Central European Mesolithic-Early Neolithic Sample) 1. Introduction The craniometry of today has been decisively founded on the early anthropologists' works, i.e. it can be regarded as the bequest of an anthropology which was still characterised by a somewhat positivist attitude. The majority of the cranial measurements used for the quantitative comparison of the sample or of the individuals are based on the rational selection or modification of the numerous defined distances which can be measured technically easily between the exposed points of the skull (cp. Broca, 1875, Török, 1890, 1895, Martin, 1928, Hrdlicka, 1952, Martin and Sailer, 1957, Olivier, 1960, Montagu, 1960, Alexeev and Debets, 1964, Alexeev, 1966, Károlyi, 1971, Howells, 1973). Recently Rösing (1974) has made an attempt at the distinction of the most reasonable craniometric features. However, that has not, in the least, altered the fact that the heritability of the measurements is still unknown. Later Bernhard, Bräuer, Chopra and Hancke (1977) and Sjevold (1984) published stringent arguments in support of the considerable heritability of the human skull's certain dimensions and the results of theirs harmonize with the results oiLeamy (1974)'s examinations on house mouse populations. The above mentioned basic researches refer to a tendency more and more preponderating within quantitative taxonomy which wishes to rely on the comparision of such features the heritability of which can be estimated. The present paper, greatly relying on the results of Osborne and De George (1959)'s twin studies, tries to demonstrate a simple attempt at the application of heritability on the cranial measurements. 2. Method There are several ways of determining the parameter (h

2

) which expresses the heritability of the craniometric measurements. The most simple principle of these is based on the determination of the so-called within-pair variances {Penrose, 1949, Neel and Schull, 1954) for the application of this method Osborne and De George (1959)'s twin studies have published appropriate information. The formula in its most abbreviated form becomes: Variance DZ

—Variance MZ Heritability = . Variance DZ DZ=double ove twins MZ=single ove twins The heritability estimate obtained in this way does not, of course, tell to what extent the trait is inherited, but only to what extent its variability is genetically determined. If the herita73