I. Rudan et al., Model-bound and model-free approach in the holistic analysis of populationstructure: Example from the island of Pag, Croatia, HOMO, 49(3), 1998, pp. 201-224
In anthropological investigations of rural populations of the eastern Adria
tic region, Croatia, various measures of biological distances (anthropometr
ic body and head distances, physiological, dermatoglyphic and radiogrammetr
ic bone distances), socio-cultural (linguistic), bio-cultural (migrational
kinship) and genetic distances between inhabitants of nine villages of the
island of Fag, Croatia were calculated. A model-bound (Malecot's isolation
by distance) and a model-free approach (factor analysis of the structure of
correlation matrices among different distance measures) were applied. Ling
uistic and genetic distances (determined for both sexes), along with most o
f the analyzed traits in females (kinship, anthropometric body and head dis
tances, physiological distances), revealed a good "fit" to the isolation by
distance model. Patterns of correlations among 17 distance matrices in bot
h sexes were analyzed, and factor analysis was performed over the correlati
on matrix obtained (after exclusion of some traits), explaining 85.9% of to
tal variance by 11 retained variables that yielded five factors. A higher-o
rder varimax rotation of the factor correlation matrix indicated that the m
ajor source of population variability was neither sex-related nor variable-
specific, bur rather lay in the interaction of population intrinsic variati
on and the extrinsic homogenizing effects of their environment. The authors
discuss and compare the application of model-hound and model-free approach
in the study of population structure, stressing the dependence of the rate
of (micro)evolutionary processes upon the historical processes that favore
d or restricted gene flow. Results of different processes of homogenization
and/or selective inertia were discussed, on strictly biological, bio-cultu
ral and socio-cultural traits in the formation of population structure.