Environment, Diet, and Craniofacial Development: A Study of Mixed Subsistence Strategies in the Great Lakes Watershed, AD 900-1600
Ned W. Farley, Courtney J. Moll, Lakaysha M. Blacksher

Abstract
The ecological richness of the Great Lakes Watershed has attracted human populations since the late Pleistocene Epoch and is now home to over 325,000 American and Canada residents. Anthropologists studying the cultural variability associated with the peopling of this region and the biological effects of shifts in subsistence strategies have focused their attentions on demographic change (Buikstra, 1978; Hart, 1999; Hutterer, 1983; Mayer and Porat, 2008; Price and Yosef, 2011) and the increased instances in pathologies such as pulmonary tuberculosis (Buikstra and Cook, 1978). This study examines the impact that a shift from foraging to small-scale agriculture had on craniofacial growth. Crania from 4 culture areas including biological material from 12 archaeological sites in Wisconsin (A.D. 900-1600) were compared in order to test the notion that craniometric traits associated with a diverse ecosystem would reflect a mixed subsistence strategy as opposed to an overreliance on plant domesticates.

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