“Race Crossing in Man: The Analysis of Metrical Characters” [Review by L. C. Dunn]

Posted in Anthropology, Articles, Book/Video Reviews on 2011-02-20 21:09Z by Steven

“Race Crossing in Man: The Analysis of Metrical Characters” [Review by L. C. Dunn]

Race Crossing in Man: The Analysis of Metrical Characters. J. C. Trevor (“Eugenics Laboratory Memoirs,” XXXVI.) London: Cambridge University Press, 1953. 45 pp., 1 plate.

American Anthropologist
Volume 56, Issue 5
(October 1954)
pages 923-924
DOI: 10.1525/aa.1954.56.5.02a00490

L. C. Dunn
Columbia University

This is a review and analysis of nine selected sets of data published before 1938. Those cases were chosen in which anthropological measurements of living “hybrid” subjects were available, together with measurements of known or assumed parent racial groups. All involved marriage between European and non-European parents. Trevor’s chief interest was to test by existing data two opinions frequently held by anthropologists: first, that the average values of physical characters of hybrid groups are intermediate between those of the parent races; and second, that populations derived from crosses of distinct races are highly variable and often show bimodal or multimodal frequency distributions. By use of adequate biometrical methods the first opinion is sustained; the second clearly is not. The absence of the anticipated high variability of hybrids was a surprise to the author, who asks whether variability might have been reduced by the tendency of hybrid groups to be inbred. He considers this possible. The reviewer would suggest that inbreeding has two effects relevant to this question: first, reduction of heterozygosity within each related group; second, a tendency toward divergence between different family or clan groups leading toward increased variance of the total population which is so divided. Much would depend on whether the hybrid population was dispersed as in the case of American Negroes, or concentrated and localized as in the case of the Norfolk Islanders. It is doubtful whether any data now exist by which such questions can be adequately tested for human groups. The variability of mensurable traits in all human populations may be such as to render imperceptible the differences due to differing degrees of “hybridity” within and between races. Trevor’s paper is a contribution to the methodology of analysis of such difficult questions as those mentioned, and a challenge to anthropologists to produce more and better data to which the methods can be applied.

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