Craniometric variation and ancestry estimation in two contemporary Caribbean populations Michelle D. Herrera a, *, Sean D. Tallman a,b a Boston University School of Medicine, Department of Anatomy and Neurobiology, Program in Forensic Anthropology, 72 East Concord Street L1004, Boston, MA 02118, United States b Department of Anthropology, 232 Bay State Rd., Boston, MA 02215, United States A R T I C L E I N F O Article history: Received 21 June 2019 Received in revised form 22 October 2019 Accepted 23 October 2019 Available online 25 October 2019 Keywords: Forensic anthropology Dominican Republic Haiti Craniometrics Ancestry estimation Computed tomography scans A B S T R A C T Ancestry estimation of skeletonized remains by forensic anthropologists is conducted through comparative means, and a lack of population-specific data results in possible misclassifications. This is especially germane to individuals of Latin American ancestry. Generally, each country in Latin America can trace their ancestral lineage through three main parental groups: Indigenous, European, and African. However, grouping all Latin American individuals under the broad “Hispanic” category ignores the specific genetic contributions from each parental group, which is variable and dependent on the population histories and sociocultural dynamics of each country. This study analyzes the craniometric ancestry of Hispaniola (the Dominican Republic and Haiti) using 190 cranial Computed Tomography (CT) scans (f = 103; m = 87), along with the island’s history, to explore similarities and differences between the two groups. MANOVA results indicate that 53.6% and 71.4% of the 28 cranial measurements differ between the ancestries and sexes, respectively; and intraobserver error analyses demonstrate that 85.7% of measurements from CT scans are good-excellent in reliability. Further, a total of 12 canonical discriminant function analyses produced cross-validated classification accuracies of 73.7–78.6% for females, 71.8–87.5% for males, and 72.0–77.8% for pooled sex. This study demonstrates that, despite sharing a small island, Dominican and Haitian individuals can be differentiated with a fair amount of statistical certainty, which is possible due to complex socio-cultural, -political, and -demographic factors that have produced and maintained genetic heterogeneity. Moreover, the discriminant functions provided here can be used by the international forensic science community to identify individuals living on Hispaniola. © 2019 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction This research explores Dominican and Haitian ancestral craniometric variation in an attempt to improve forensic anthro- pological practice for minority and admixed groups in Latin America. The island of Hispaniola has a rich anthropological history that began around 500 BCE [1,2]. The original inhabitants of the island, along with their near decimation by the Spanish and French colonizers, and the integration of African slaves contributed to the ancestral makeup of its present-day populations. Numerous studies conducted on the inhabitants of the Caribbean and other Latin American countries argue for highly diversified genetic variation found amongst these ancestral groups [2–8]. Further, recent sociopolitics in the Dominican Republic and Haiti have led to unique migratory patterns both on the island and into the U.S. By acknowledging the history of the inhabitants and descendants of Hispaniola and through population-specific craniometric data, forensic anthropologists can begin to see a clearer picture of skeletal variation in Latin America, thus potentially reducing the rates of misclassification so prominent within these populations. 1.1. Brief history of the Caribbean and the island of Hispaniola In order to explore morphological variation found on the island of Hispaniola it is imperative to understand its history and the overall history of the Caribbean. The Caribbean was home to many Amerindian groups before its colonization, made evident through numerous archaeological findings [1,2]. When the Spanish arrived in 1492, the Taino, who originated from South America, were the first indigenous group encountered [9]. Tainos were the largest ethnic group on the island of Hispaniola and in the Northern Caribbean [1]; however, between one-third and one-half of the * Corresponding author. E-mail address: herreram@bu.edu (M.D. Herrera). http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.forsciint.2019.110013 0379-0738/© 2019 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. Forensic Science International 305 (2019) 110013 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Forensic Science International journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locat e/f orsciint