Jessica Munoz

Human Osteology Practicum

November 12, 2014
Technical Report #8 Nonmetric Cranial Traits
In the article titled Cranial Deformation and Nonmetric Trait Variation Lyle W.
Konisberg, Luci A.P. Kohn, and James M. Cheverud addresses the effects of three
cranial deformations; annular, the lambdoid flattening deformation, and the frontooccipital deformation on nonmetric cranial traits. In order to assess these effects,
the authors, studied a large sample of protohistric and prehistoric crania.
Understanding cranial deformations is important because cranial characteristics and
markings are what allow osteologists to be able to determine sex, race, and age at
death of an individual.
Konisberg,Kohn, and Cheverud begin the article by discussing that the,
[i]nfluence of deformation on cranial discrete or nonmetric trait frequencies has not
been clearly resolved in literature. They first discuss two instances in which
reaserchers attempted to conduct a study related to cranial deformation. The first
study was conducted over a 100 years ago by researcher Dorsey, whom suggested
that the high relative frequency of coronal ossicles in a sample of Kwakiutl crania at
the Field Museum was caused by what is referred to as an annular deformation
which was practiced by the group. The second study however, resulted with Sullivan
finding no clear association between deformation and discrete trait frequencies for
North American samples. The authors explain that these studies were flawed
because they did not compare nonmetric trait frequencies between deformed crania
within specific populations, which meant that it was impossible to tell whether trait
frequency differences were caused due to deformation or due to population
variations.

Jessica Munoz
Human Osteology Practicum
November 12, 2014
Further into the article the researchers discuss the various reasons of why
the effect of cranial deformation on nonmetrics is unresolved. The researchers
explain that the first reason is that a distinction of the deformed versus the not
deformed doesnt take into account the fact that there are different types of
deformation. The second reason being, that the intensity of the deformation can
vary widely. In addition to this the researchers explain, [t]hat the classification of
deformed vs. not deformed within past studies is often very ambiguous, and is
rarely supported by any examination of repeatability of the scoring.
In the section titled Materials and Methods the researchers explain that
they conducted their study using a sample of 447 crania from the Hopi, Nootka,
Kwakiutl, and a prehistoric Peruvian series. The crania were scored by classifying
them as not deformed, slightly deformed, and deformed or much deformed.
Furthermore, in this section they discuss that they measured repeatability by finding
the polychoric correlation between the 1985-1987 and the 1989 scorings of
deformation. They explain that they use polychoric correlation because it allows for
an underlying normal distribution of the status of the deformation. This section is
followed a section in which the researchers explain the tables and models
developed by the results from their study.
In conclusion, according to the researchers their, [r]esults suggest that
while cranial deformation can influence the relative frequency of a minority of
nonmetric cranial traits, the effect is minimal. They further explain that it is
unlikely that the deformation would indicate or change the true population
relationships that are assessed from the cranial nonmetric traits. They further

Jessica Munoz
Human Osteology Practicum
November 12, 2014
discuss that there are nonmetric traits which are more strongly influenced by the
various forms of deformation. For example the coronal ossicles are increased in
relative frequency by the three forms of deformation observed in the study of this
article. Another example would be the relative frequency of open spinosum
foramina and the presence of a Huschke foramen is increased by the flattening of
the lambdoid and only present on the right side of the cranium. The researchers
concluded that while deformation does affect the relative frequency of some
nonmetric traits, the scope of a deformations influence on nonmetric trait variation
is much less that what is observable for craniometrics. I studied a crania in the San
Francisco State University Anthropology and looked at the nonmetric cranial traits
and assessed their absence or presence. I further applied the findings from this
article into my assessment of the crania and found that the crania J that I observed
would be classified as not deformed due to the fact that it was not affected by any
of the three deformations. The crania demonstrated no relative frequency of coronal
ossicles of Huschke foramen on either the right or left side of the crania. For the
most part the nonmetric traits were evened out for both sides.