Dental Variation of Prehistoric Amerindian Populations from Eastern Tennessee

The purpose of this thesis is to estimate biological distance between three Native American skeletal samples from the eastern Tennessee. Biological distance, or degree of genetic relatedness, will be assessed by a comparison of dental nonmetric trait frequencies. The samples included here represent three prehistoric populations from the Late Mississippian cultural period (AD 1000-1600). Archaeological data indicates that these populations are temporally successive and correspond to the late Hiwassee Islan