Resumen de The usefulness of discrimination based on distances on human evolution

Concepción Arenas Solá, Daniel Turbón Borrega

• The reconstruction of human history from the fossil record often runs up against incomplete or differential preservation of specimens. In anthropological studies a large number of variables are usually taken and missing values can be a problem. Here we analyze three population samples of extinct aborigines from Tierra del Fuego. The first sample, with sex and ethnic group known, is used to compare the step-wise discriminant analysis and the discriminant analysis based on distances. With the second sample a first approach to the assignation of poorly documented specimens in relation to sex or ethnic group is presented here by comparing the results from the two discriminant methods. A third sample of skulls with ethnic group and sex unknown is used to illustrate the advantages of distance-based discriminant analysis to solve the problem of allocating individuals when some values are missing