the physical anthropological intermediacy problem of na - dené / greater northwest coast indians

For more than thirty years, it has been recognized that the dentition of the Indians of the Alaskan Interior and Pacific Northwest has crown and root trait frequencies that are often intermediate between those of Eskimo-Aleuts and all North and South American Indians. When many dental morphological variables are assessed simultaneously, tooth-based distance values show that Na-Dené/Greater Northwest Coast (ND-GNWC) samples fall between Eskimo-Aleuts and American Indians. The largest analysis of nuclear genetic markers to date reveals a similar pattern (Cavalli-Sforza et al. 1994). The divergence of Eskimo-Aleuts, American Indians, and ND-GNWC populations from a common ancestor in Northeast Asia was initially driven by chance forces (founder effect/genetic drift), but ND-GNWC intermediacy found in recent populations is likely due to gene flow in the New World between American Indian (cf. Algonkian) and ND-GNWC groups. keywords: colonization of New World, dental morphology, genetics