Original scientific paper
Holistic Anthropological Research of Hvar Islanders, Croatia – From Parish Registries to DNA Studies in 33 Years
Pavao Rudan Rudan
Branka Janićijević
Veljko Jovanović
Jasna Miličić
Nina Smolej Narančić
Anita Sujoldžić
Lajos Szirovicza
Tatjana Škarić-Jurić
Lovorka Barać Lauc
Tomislav Lauc
Irena Martinović Klarić
Marijana Peričić
Diana Rudan
Igor Rudan
Abstract
The complexity of interactions between hereditary, environmental and cultural factors
in determining human phenotypes is often underestimated in biomedical research.
In this paper, we present 33 years of holistic anthropological research that was being
conducted since 1971 in the island of Hvar, Croatia. During this period, detailed characterization
of migrations, demography, isonymy, linguistic differences, anthropometric
traits (head and body dimensions), physiological (cardio-respiratory) properties, quantitative
and qualitative dermatoglyphic traits, radiogrammetric metacarpal bone dimensions
and genetic traits (classical antigens, HLA diversity, DNA short tandem repeat
-STR, mitochondrial DNA and Y-chromosome polymorphisms) was performed. The
analysis of this large collection of data using both model-bound and model-free approaches
showed that the complexity underlying human biological traits may be considerably
greater than generally assumed, which has important implications for design of
future studies into genetic determinants of complex traits.
Keywords
phenotypes; genetics; environment; culture; population structure; holistic approach; modelling; anthropology; island of Hvar; Croatia
Hrčak ID:
28043
URI
Publication date:
28.12.2004.
Visits: 1.494 *