| This dissertation investigates the first forty years of genetic research on Native American peoples. Between 1923, when the first study of Native American genetics was published, and the early 1960s, when new molecular technologies greatly expanded the scope of human genetics research, scientists completed over 60 studies of the genetics of American Indians. These studies, which were conducted primarily by physical anthropologists interested in questions of biological race, human variation, and human migration, provide a lens through which to examine the histories of human genetics and physical anthropology. This historical account traces the integration of genetics into anthropological research through the work of scientists including Laurence Snyder, William Boyd, James Spuhler, and Clyde Kluckhohn, and it examines how questions of race and human difference were conceptualized in genetic studies of Native Americans. In this dissertation I argue that although the scientific questions driving this research changed dramatically over these years, the justifications for why scientists focused on Native Americans remained constant: Native American communities were perceived to be uniquely valuable and rapidly vanishing genetic resources. |
