Przegląd Antropologiczny - Anthropological Review, 2001, vol. 64
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Item An old species and a new frontier: Some thoughts on the taxonomy of Homo erectus(Polskie Towarzystwo Antropologiczne, 2001) Wang, Qian; Tobias, Philip V.The taxonomic impact on Homo erectus induced by a "preerctus-out-of-Africa" paradigm is preliminarily discussed in this article. Some of the early Homo species in Asia should be allocated to another taxon rather than to H. erectus, although teir real identities are not yet readily apparent. Asian H. erectus may be taxonomically distinct from African H. ergaster. Differences between two samples of H. erectus from Java and China, suggesting taxonomic diversity or only geographical variances between these subset, need further study. Reasons are advanced against the proposal to lump H. erecus into H. sapiens.Item The aesthetics of he eyes and mouth position in a three-point face schema(Polskie Towarzystwo Antropologiczne, 2001) Frąckiewicz, WaldemarOculographical research of people watching a human face indicates than beholder's eyes stop most often and for the longest period of time on the eyes and the mouth of the face looked at and that they move among these three points most frequently. The position of the eyes and mouth in relation to one another can be described with a single number being a measure of an angle with the vertex in the middle of the mouth and with arms crossing the centers of the eye pupils. The angles were measured from photographs of people from all over the world, as well as of residents of Lublin. Subsequently, the subjects from Lublin were asked to make face schemas by positioning the eyes and the mouth in the way they considered most attractive. The eye-mouth-eye angle of these schemas was measured. Additionally, measurements of the same angle were taken from the faces depicted in icons. The schemas of the most attractive - according to the subjects - faces were characterized by angles approximating the mean angle from the photographs, and significantly greater than the mean angle from the icons.Item Molecular anthropology: Touching the past through ancient DNA retrieval. Methodological aspects(Polskie Towarzystwo Antropologiczne, 2001) Witas, Henryk W.The revolution which introduced new techniques of molecular biology applied to DNA analysis enormously accelerated the progress in most areas of medicine and biology. Techniques such as polymerase chain reaction (PCR), restriction analysis and sequencing are widely used for diagnosis of a number od diseases, for genetic screening, phylogenetic analysis and population studies. Moreover, it became possible to study genetic realationships of extinct to contemporary organisms and even to follow evolutionary events. Variation in DNA sequences, especially that of humans, is fascinating not only for our own sake, but also because of the inferences that can be drawn from t about our recent evolution, demography and movements. Selected problems arising during ancient DNA (aDNA) isolation and analysis are discussed. Environment and time related factors altering the structure of nucleic acids as well as contamination of isolated material are among methodological problems that arise during the procedure of isolation and processing of aDNA. Resolving them is of great importance for the authentication of the identified sequences. Most common informative targets of aDNA are presented and among them mtDNA, and the sequences localized within nuclear DNA.The first, as well as the most important findings in the field are mentioned.Item Social-class differences in Poland pronounced in stature, but absent in gene frequencies(Polskie Towarzystwo Antropologiczne, 2001) Gronkiewicz, LidiaThe marked social-class differences in physical growth of youth, as well as in a variety of health-related biological characteristics of adults, observed in many industrial societies are as a rule interpreted as nongenetic in nature and therefore as purely phenotypic manifestations of social inequalities in living standards. However, this tacitly adopted "no genetics" assumption has very seldom been subject to any empirical validation. The present study in an attempt to provide such validation for the population of Poland. The material was collected over the period from 1960 to 1990 and drawn from cases of disputed paternity. It comprises a total of 8861 adults of both sexes; roughly half of them are males, the presumptive fathers. It was found that throughout the period of several decades covered by this study no significant differences appeared between the varous social strata in allele frequencies of any of the following 8 genetic loci: ABO, MN, Rh(D), Hp, Gm(a), AcP, PGM1, EsD. Nor is there any suggestion of long-term trends in allele frequencies for any of the above loci. This pattern is in sharp contrast to the strikingly regular social gradients, and intense secular trends, observed in the population of post-war Poland in stature and age at menarche. It is postulated that the above findings are consonant with the "no genetic component" hypothesis.Item Assigned Resampling Method: A new method to estimate size sexual dimorphism in samples of unknown sex(Polskie Towarzystwo Antropologiczne, 2001) Lee, Sang-HeeThis paper proposes a new method, Assigned Resampling Method (ARM), to estimate the degree of size sexual dimorphism in samples of unknown sex. ARM resamples with replacement pairs of observation from the mixed-sex data and after applying a filter, generates a distribution of dimorpism estimates by transforming the pair values into ratios. The mean of the distribution is proposed as the ARM estimate of sexual dimorphism. Using 40 metric variables from comparative data sets of known sex (91 humans, 46 chimpanzees, and 56 gorillas), the ARM estimates were compared with the observed sexual dimorphism. Results show that the difference between the ARM estimates and the observed sexual dimorphism is within 5% for most of the variables examined. ARM is shown to perform reliably under various conditions of unequal sex ratios and small sample sizes. By directly comparing fragmentary materials without estimating body size, and by using an algorithm that does not rely n sex diagnosis of individual specimens, ARM addresses the challenges of studying sexual dimorphism with fossil samples.Item A report on physical performance in female patients diseased for idiopathic scoliosis(Polskie Towarzystwo Antropologiczne, 2001) Laurentowska, Maria; Szczepanowska, Ewa; Głowacki, Maciej; Rychlewski, TadeuszThe purpose of this study was to examine physical performance and exercise tolerance in patients with scoliosis in comparison with healthy girls of the similar age. Results of the study show the similar aerobic performance in both groups. However, exercise tolerance was significantly lower in patients with scoliosis than in the control group. Similarly, resting values af cardiac output and stroke volume were significantly lower in girls with scoliosis as comared with healthy girls.Item Marital status and biological conition of Polish males(Polskie Towarzystwo Antropologiczne, 2001) Lipowicz, AnnaStrong evidence for marital differences in mortality has been demonstrated in a large number of countries. Married men and women have lower death rates than unmarried individuals within each adult age group. Additionally, married persons tend to be healthier as compared to unmarried. In the literature two explanations for this patterning have been proposed. "The health selection hypothesis" seggested that disabled or less healthy people are not as likely to get married as the healthy ones. In "the social causation hypothesis", marriage yields health benefits through emotional and social suport which may act as a buffer against the effects of life stress. In this study, "the social causation hypothesis" is supported.Item Tactile sensitivity of blind and visually impaired children and adolescents. The significance of swimming exercises(Polskie Towarzystwo Antropologiczne, 2001) Rostkowska, Elżbieta; Maśnik, ElżbietaThe im of the study is to compare the tactile sensitivity threshold (TST) of the blind children who practice swimming and those who do not practice any sports with the TST of healthy people of similar age. TST was measured on the pad of he index finger of the dominant hand using an aesthesiometer. Lower TST was found in blind girls compared to healthy girls as well as lower TST in blind girls who practice swimming compared to the blind girls who do not practice ane sports. A significant lowering of the TST during exercises in water was noted.Item Age at menopause and reproductive determinants in Polish women(Polskie Towarzystwo Antropologiczne, 2001) Kaczmarek, Maria; Szwed, AnitaSelected reproductive determinants of age at menopause were analyzed using data from a representative sample of 4354 women aged 35-65 years. The data were collected in cross-sectional surveys carried out in Wielkopolska and Western part of Poland in the years 1998 to 2001. Menopausal status and median and mean ages at menopause were estimated with the use of retrospective and status-quo methods. It was found that the median age at natural menopause, estimated by probit analysis, was 50.1 years. Women, who had been treated with HRT (Hormonal Replacement Therapy) in the period perimenopause, underwent manopause significantly later - their median age at menopause was 52.9 years. Results of ANOVA revealed that of all characteristic of female reproduction taken into consideration, age at menarche and lenght of menstruation cycle had significant influence on age at menopause. Menopause occurred markedly later in women who began to menstruate after 15 years of age and whose menstrual cycles lasted longer than 32 days. Reproductive determinants were considered as a complex factor. Stepwise multiple regression analysis with backward elimination revealed that the reproductive determinants including the lenght of menstruation cycle, age at menarhe, age at first and last pregnancies and lenght of lactation in combination affected age at menopause.