The application of models based on surnames to the study of the genetic structure of the human population would seem to call for some justification. Any such application involves the assumption that the inheritance of surnames and biological inheritance are similar, or alternatively it must attempt to measure and allow for the differences between the inheritance of surnames and that of genetic traits.

One may begin to introduce the subject of surname models by an account of the scope of human biology, the place of human population structure in it, and the reason that models by analogy are needed. Human biology is concerned with the adaptive mechanism that makes human life possible. From one point of view this is controlled by those aspects of the genome that are shared by all humans and distinguish human beings from members of other animal species. Human life involves the response of human beings in various cultural and natural environments.

The other chief concern of human biology is human differences and the factors that account for them. Again these can be genetic at base, but they also involve interaction with the environment – which, for human beings, involves virtually the whole range of land habitats and is rendered much more varied still by the results of human activities and their variation from region to region.