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Demography and Evolution in an Immigrant Ethnic Community: Hungarian Settlement, Louisiana, USA

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 July 2008

Tibor Koertvelyessy
Tibor Koertvelyessy
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, Ohio University, Athens, Ohio, USA
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Summary

This paper describes the fertility, mortality, and marriage patterns of the Hungarian Settlement, Louisiana, USA, immigrant ethnic population and relates these demographic processes to the evolutionary forces of natural selection, genetic drift, and gene flow. The results indicate that the maximum opportunity for natural selection decreased over time, and natural selection could have operated in the case of this population at only a very moderate level. The demographic characteristics of this population suggest that genetic drift may be important as an agent of microdifferentiation. Gene flow, however, appears to be the most important evolutionary force in this population. The process, based on the increasing incorporation of non-Hungarians into the gene pool, is causing the breakdown of this ethnic/genetic isolate.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Biosocial Science , Volume 15 , Issue 2 , April 1983 , pp. 223 - 236
Copyright
Copyright © 1983, Cambridge University Press

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