Richard Scott | University of Nevada, Reno (original) (raw)

Papers by Richard Scott

In the Boasian triad of race, language and culture (Boas 1940), anthropologists have long acknowl... more In the Boasian triad of race, language and culture (Boas 1940), anthropologists have long acknowledged that the process of change, or evolution, accelerates as one moves from biology, to language, to culture. Deducing deep historical relationships based on cultural elements is diffi cult, given the ease of borrowing (diff usion) and the rapidity of developing and adopting new ideas (innovation) or losing old ones (cultural drift/selection). Despite its comparable potential for horizontal as well as vertical transmission, language is still much more conservative than culture. Linguistic ties can often be perceived over many millennia, though there is no consensus among historical linguists on the temporal limits of establishing ‘genetic’ relationships. Given the well known case of Indo-European languages, most would agree that recognizable linguistic similarities can persevere for at least 5000 years. Beyond that temporal limit, the consensus among linguists falls apart. Manning (200...

... In the year following his return to Iceland (986), Erik led a party of several hundred coloni... more ... In the year following his return to Iceland (986), Erik led a party of several hundred colonizers to the western coast of Greenland ... subsistence demands, the Greenlanders were responsible for contributing to the welfare of the church in the form of tithes (eg, walrus ivory) and labor ...

cas.umt.edu

... instances where cannibalism is a choice, some groups widely acknowledged for this behavior (e... more ... instances where cannibalism is a choice, some groups widely acknowledged for this behavior (eg, Fijians, New Guineans, Maori, Aztecs) are culturally driven, with motives combining ...Ethnoarchaeology and experimental archaeology carried out in the 1970s demonstrated that ...

Dental Anthropology Journal, 2020

Basque population history has been examined through classic genetic markers, mtDNA, Y chromosome ... more Basque population history has been examined through classic genetic markers, mtDNA, Y chromosome haplogroups, craniometrics, and recently dental morphology. Dental morphological data show Basques have a classic European dental pattern but fall as an outlier among European populations. Expanding on that work, Basque tooth size was examined to further evaluate the affinities of the Basque population. Mesiodistal and buccolingual maximum crown measurements were taken from medieval and post medieval skeletons from the Catedral de Santa María in Vitoria, Spain, along with living samples of modern Basques, Spanish, and Spanish Basques from dental students at the Universidad del País Vasco. A dental metric examination affirms the outlier status of Basques, as they exhibit smaller crown areas than neighboring populations. In biodistance analyses Basque populations group with linguistically and geographically distant populations. Even with gene flow from Spain, France, and North Africa, Basq...

Dental Anthropology Journal, 2018

While observing dental characteristicsin Spanish and Basque skeletons from the Cathedralof Santa ... more While observing dental characteristicsin Spanish and Basque skeletons from the Cathedralof Santa Maria in Vitoria, Spain, an unusual patternof staining was evident in 18 of 206 individuals. Thestain, which permeated bone, dentine, calculus, and/orenamel, varied in color from bright green to turquoise.Males and females, all age categories, and medieval andpost-medieval skeletons were equally affected. The greenstain was the result of an ancient practice going back toGreek times that involved placing a silver or gold coin(obol) in the mouth of the deceased prior to burial forthe purpose of paying the boatman (Charon) for passageacross the river of woe (Acheron). In Spain, bronze coinssubstituted for silver and gold. The copper componentof the bronze reacted with the acidic environment causedby decomposition creating basic copper carbonate. Thecopper carbonate then seeped into the porous spacesof the bones and teeth or replaced the mineral portionof the bone. The duration of this pract...

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, May 8, 2018

Because of the ubiquitous adaptability of our material culture, some human populations have occup... more Because of the ubiquitous adaptability of our material culture, some human populations have occupied extreme environments that intensified selection on existing genomic variation. By 32,000 years ago, people were living in Arctic Beringia, and during the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM; 28,000-18,000 y ago), they likely persisted in the Beringian refugium. Such high latitudes provide only very low levels of UV radiation, and can thereby lead to dangerously low levels of biosynthesized vitamin D. The physiological effects of vitamin D deficiency range from reduced dietary absorption of calcium to a compromised immune system and modified adipose tissue function. The ectodysplasin A receptor () gene has a range of pleiotropic effects, including sweat gland density, incisor shoveling, and mammary gland ductal branching. The frequency of the human-specific allele appears to be uniquely elevated in North and East Asian and New World populations due to a bout of positive selection likely to have...

International Journal of Osteoarchaeology, 2010

International Journal of Osteoarchaeology, 2016

Quaternary International, 2016

Evolutionary anthropology, Jan 4, 2016

Until recently, the settlement of the Americas seemed largely divorced from the out-of-Africa dis... more Until recently, the settlement of the Americas seemed largely divorced from the out-of-Africa dispersal of anatomically modern humans, which began at least 50,000 years ago. Native Americans were thought to represent a small subset of the Eurasian population that migrated to the Western Hemisphere less than 15,000 years ago. Archeological discoveries since 2000 reveal, however, that Homo sapiens occupied the high-latitude region between Northeast Asia and northwest North America (that is, Beringia) before 30,000 years ago and the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM). The settlement of Beringia now appears to have been part of modern human dispersal in northern Eurasia. A 2007 model, the Beringian Standstill Hypothesis, which is based on analysis of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) in living people, derives Native Americans from a population that occupied Beringia during the LGM. The model suggests a parallel between ancestral Native Americans and modern human populations that retreated to refugia in...

For more than thirty years, it has been recognized that the dentition of the Indians of the Alask... more For more than thirty years, it has been recognized that the dentition of the Indians of the Alaskan In-terior and Pacific Northwest has crown and root trait frequencies that are often intermediate between those of Eskimo-Aleuts and all North and South American Indians. When many dental morpho-logical variables are assessed simultaneously, tooth-based distance values show that Na-Dené/Greater Northwest Coast (ND-GNWC) samples fall between Eskimo-Aleuts and American Indians. The largest analysis of nuclear genetic markers to date reveals a similar pattern (Cavalli-Sforza et al. 1994). The divergence of Eskimo-Aleuts, American Indians, and ND-GNWC populations from a common ancestor in Northeast Asia was initially driven by chance forces (founder effect/genetic drift), but ND-GNWC intermediacy found in recent populations is likely due to gene flow in the New World between American Indian (cf. Algonkian) and ND-GNWC groups.