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The Inuits of the Arctic have been able to adapt to the extreme cold as well as the seafood diet. The Inuit people enjoy the benefit of a range of genetic adaptations to their climatic conditions and diet that help them to survive in harsh environments. The region has been considered to play a key role in the climatic adjustments of the Inuits by generating heat from the various forms of body fats. The scientists have been able to follow up on the very first natural selection research in Inuits in order to obtain a comprehensive understanding of the origins of the adaptations. The paper explores the various perspectives of their adaptations from the physical anthropology point of view.
Scientists have been able to trace the study on natural selection among the Inuits, in an attempt to understand the beginning of such adaptations. In conducting the research, data on genomics tracing back to approximately 200 Greenland Inuits was compared to about 1000 compelling pieces of evidence which confer some unique adaptive characteristics of this population which is said to be ancient hominid DNA and genomes projects from Denisovans and Neanderthals. The results provided more related to the group that is popularly referred to as the Denisovans. It has been found that the DNA sequence of the Inuit matches perfectly with the Denisovan genome, and it happens to be very differentiated from the present-day human sequences. However, we cannot do away with the possibility that the variant was introduced from another different archaic group whose genomes have not yet been sampled. It was evident that the variant is present albeit in very low frequencies in Eurasia, but exhibits high frequencies in the Native American populations as well as Inuits. However, it has been consistently absent in Africa. A gene that is said to affect the human body’s response to cold is called TBX15. This gene is associated with some traits that are related to the distribution of the body fats. The archaic variant is likely to have been beneficial to the current humans during the expansion throughout Beringia into America to Siberia.
Researchers have also attempted to unveil the physiological role of the region, which is particularly important in establishing factors that help to determine fat metabolism, as well as the BMU index. There is some relationship between the archaic region and the gene expression of WARS2 and TBX15 in the various tissues such as the adipose tissues and the fibroblasts. This shows that the introduced variant is more likely to have altered the regulation of the genes, although the exact mechanism through which this happened is not precise. The variants enable the Inuits to adapt to the arctic climatic conditions, enabling them to survive and thrive. The genetic mutations among the Inuits recompense physiologically for the massive consumption of animal fat, mainly from whales and blubbery seals. The group’s lifestyle influences the genetic makeup and movement. The jaws are adapted to devouring meat, which was primarily consumed in its raw form before the community began using fire. The strong jaws are mainly adaptable to eating meat. The heavy fat deposits that are stored around the Inuits’ bodies come in handy during such harsh times when they have to survive on poor diets.
Furthermore, the coldness in the Arctic region requires that the body of the Inuits be able to manage the extremely low temperatures to keep the heart and vital body organs working. The TBX15 gene helps the Inuit’s body to have a balanced distribution of fats across the body for insulation against cold temperatures. The fats are harnessed from the diet, which includes the eating of sea seals. The varying genetic makeup of the Inuits is what makes them physically different from the rest of the human population in a manner that supports their survival in one of the harshest climatic conditions on Earth. Scientists studying the genetic adaptation of the Greenland Inuits revealed the exceptional genetic variants that are linked to fat metabolism. It is imperative to note that the group’s diet is mostly meat with high cholesterols that would cause heart diseases. However, the Inuits have undergone gene mutations to have a gene that allows the absorption of more fats without the risk of developing cardiovascular diseases.
The climate became colder during the period that is referred to as the little ice age (after about 1350). It is during this period that the Alaskan natives continued with their whaling activities. However, this was not the case in the high Arctic as the Inuits were forced to abandon their whaling and hunting sites as the whales disappeared from Canada and Greenland. As such, they were to survive on much poor diet and did not have more access to the essential raw materials for their architecture and tools which they had obtained from whaling. It is the changing climate that compelled them to work their way south, thus pushing them to the marginal niches along the tree line edges. The movement was informed by the need to survive the adverse climatic conditions, most importantly sustained access to food. All along, the movements came with adaptations, though not radical, to enable the Inuits to live in the changing environmental conditions. Nevertheless, the Inuits have maintained their heavy intake of meat throughout the migration, which asserts the consistency in their nutritional culture.
The study of the facial structure remains somewhat essential such that the skull remained the central anthropological locus when it comes to determining racial and anthropological traits. With this regard, Blumenbach in 1775 coined the term “Caucasian” while at the same time developing the racial typology anchored on the comparison of the skulls, and was made up of a renowned skull collection that comprised skulls from Labrador and Nain. In 1839, Morton classified races by cranial capacity, and phrenological features and determined that all the Native Americans were related, other than a group called the “Esquimaux.” Richard King, who is the English Ethnologist, took issue with the current anthropological arguments that the industrial arts and intellectual and physical nature of the Inuits were biological, and suggested opposite possibilities. The Inuit have a different anatomy from the rest of the communities because of their adaptation to their climatic conditions and lifestyle. The eyes are more circuitously set whereas the skin color is lighter, light brown, or yellowish or light brown. The Inuit have strong bones, which help them to hunt and kill large sea mammals. Whaling requires well-built bodies because of the strength and weight of the hunt. According to research, these are adaptations that enable the Inuits to manage their hunting lifestyle.
Unlike other groups of humans, it is estimated that the Inuits have a high cranial capacity to accommodate large brains and eyes, which help them to survive in areas with low light capacity. The eyes sockets are big to take into account the big size of the eyes. Scientists contend that the Inuits have huge eyeballs as an adaptive feature to enable them to see clearly in an environment where sunlight is scarce. Hunting of marine animals requires that the Inuits be well positioned to see the prey, hence the importance of the large crania and eyes. The size of the crania is relatively bigger than the other communities, especially those that live in the tropics and enjoy much sunlight. In Africa, the aspect of big eyeballs is a mission, and so is in Asia. Therefore, the unique environmental conditions in the Arctic influence the adaptive features that the Inuits have, which vary from the rest of the communities.
The above information provides more insight into quite a number of the recent scenarios of ancient marriages which may have led to some specific adaptive characteristics of the modern humans in the region. However, it is quite tricky from a research point of view when the Inuit stopped their territorial expansion. Some evidence suggests that they were still moving to a new territory south of Labrador at the time they started to interact with the European colonialists. Above all, the group has genetic and physical adaptations of its arctic environment, which enables it to survive in the harsh weather conditions of the Arctic region. The absorption and use of fats for insulating the body are one of the adaptive features of the Inuits’ heavy intake of meat that has high cholesterols. There also exist some controversies about some of the anthropological research above in an attempt to deconstruct the preexisting notions of the adaptations of the Inuit people of the Arctic. However, the Inuits have unique physical anthropological features that point out to their long-term adaptation to the arctic climate and lifestyle of eating much meat that is rich in fats.
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