Are the Biological Differences Between North American Indians and Eskimos Truly Profound? [and Comments and Reply]

Abstract

A prevailing view in North American anthropology is that Eskimos are descendants of the most recent migrants from Siberia and are more closely related to Asiatic Mongoloids than to Indians. The assumption of Eskimo-Indian biological distinctiveness is challenged by genetic-marker and cranial data, analyzed separately and then compared, for populations from the Arctic, Subarctic, Northwest Coast, and Great Plains. Genetic distances and cluster analysis based on 11 blood-group and serum-protein systems in 18 population samples reveal non-Siberian Eskimos (Alaska, Canada, Greenland) closer to certain Indians than to Siberian Eskimos, Asiatic Mongoloids, or Chukchi. Similarly, phenetic distances based on 24 discrete cranial traits in 19 samples reveal a reciprocally close affinity between Eskimos and certain Indians. Because of theoretical problems inherent in testing concordance between distance matrices, the significance of test results cannot readily be judged. Nevertheless, we suspect that the correlation between genetic and skeletal distances for 12 populations common to both data sets is significant (Spearman's p<10 ; Kendall's , p<10 ). Emerging from both data sets as notably close to Eskimos are Indians of the Na-Dene language phylum (Haida, Tlingit, Athapaskans). The pattern of affinities cannot be accounted for-and in fact is inconsistent with-recent gene flow. These findings, interpreted within the context of known archaeological sequences in Alaska, point to the conclusion that Na-Dene and Eskimo peoples represent two offshoots of the same population base at about 10,000 B. P.