Morris Alan G, Ribot Isabelle
Department of Human Biology, University of Cape Town, Observatory 7925, South Africa.
Am J Phys Anthropol. 2006 May;130(1):10-25. doi: 10.1002/ajpa.20308.
Little has been described of the Holocene populations of South-Central Africa, despite the region demonstrating major subsistence shifts relating to dispersals of agriculturalists at least 2,000 years ago. Seven sites with associated human skeletal remains were selected. Hora, Chencherere, Fingura, and Mtuzi represent the Middle Holocene (2,000-5,000 years ago), and Phwadze, Mtemankhokwe, and Nkudzi Bay represent the Late Holocene and the arrival of agriculturalists between 500-2,000 years ago. Focusing on the identity of Hora and Chencherere specimens, two questions were addressed: are the various Holocene Malawians similar to each other, or do they suggest morphological change over time? What modern populations are closest to the prehistoric specimens? The archaeological sample was compared to modern sub-Saharan Africans from four regions, plus a historic Khoi-San foraging group. Factor analyses were performed in order to identify complex patterns of variation in metric traits of the skull. According to the results, prehistoric Malawians showed only slight differences between the Late and Middle Holocene, suggesting a population change without any major discontinuity. Later Stone Age skulls did not exclusively show similarities with the Khoi-San, as they frequently fit well within the variation of modern Bantu-speaking groups, especially West-Central Africa. Therefore, we reject the hypothesis that Middle Holocene South-Central Africans have an exclusively Khoi-San ancestry, and support an alternative hypothesis that both Middle and Late Holocene groups share a common biological heritage originating in West-Central Africa in earlier times.
尽管中南非洲地区至少在2000年前就因农业群体的扩散而出现了重大的生计转变，但关于全新世时期该地区人口的描述却很少。我们选择了七个有相关人类骨骼遗骸的遗址。霍拉、陈切雷雷、芬古拉和姆图齐代表中全新世（2000 - 5000年前），普瓦德泽、姆特曼霍克韦和恩库齐湾代表晚全新世以及500 - 2000年前农业群体的到来。聚焦于霍拉和陈切雷雷标本的身份，我们探讨了两个问题：不同的全新世马拉维人彼此相似吗，还是他们暗示了随时间的形态变化？哪些现代人群与史前标本最为接近？我们将考古样本与来自四个地区的现代撒哈拉以南非洲人以及一个历史时期的科伊 - 桑觅食群体进行了比较。进行了因子分析，以识别头骨测量特征的复杂变异模式。根据结果，史前马拉维人在晚全新世和中全新世之间仅显示出细微差异，表明人口有变化但没有任何重大间断。晚石器时代的头骨并非只与科伊 - 桑人有相似之处，因为它们常常很好地符合现代说班图语群体的变异范围，尤其是中西部非洲群体。因此，我们拒绝中全新世中南非洲人完全具有科伊 - 桑人血统的假设，并支持另一种假设，即中全新世和晚全新世群体都共享一个起源于早期中西部非洲的共同生物遗产。
