The usefulness of discrimination based on distances on human evolution

The reconstruction of human history from the fossil record often ru ns up against incomplete or differential preservation of specimens. In anth ropological studies a large number of variables are usually taken and mi ssing values can be a problem. Here we analyze three population samples of extinct aborigines from Tierra del Fuego. The first sample, with se x and ethnic group known, is used to compare the step-wise discriminant a nalysis and the discriminant analysis based on distances. With the secon d sample a first approach to the assignation of poorly documented specim ens in relation to sex or ethnic group is presented here by comparing the resu lts from the two discriminant methods. A third sample of skulls withethnic group and sex unknown is used to illustrate the advantages of dist ancebased discriminant analysis to solve the problem of allocating ind ividuals when some values are missing.