Research

My research involves using morphological and molecular data to develop population genetic models for exploring patterns of variation in Arctic and other New World human populations. My general research interests include:

• Testing models of population movement into the New World, including developing new methods for examining continuity and replacement across time and geographic space.
• Examining how environmental climatic factors have played a role in defining current patterns of human variation. I am using quantitative genetic theory to examine how simulated response to selection provides evidence of differential integration in the human crania as a response to environmental stress.
• Discerning the relationship between different genetic systems (cranial shape, discrete cranial markers, molecular data) and their practicality for quantifying population structure and testing hypotheses of population relationship and evolutionary process.

I am currently working in Bolivia as the Human Remains Specialist for the Project Early Human Occupation in Lipez, Bolivia, run by Dr. Juan Albarracin-Jordan, Fundación Bartolomé de las Casas and Jose M. Capriles, Washington University in St. Louis. The sites excavated by this project are located between the Uyuni Salt flat and the Atacama Desert, and include dry caves with excellent organic preservation. A confirmed AMS radiocarbon date of cal. 13k BP makes these sites some of the earliest confirmed South American human occupations. As part of this project I am analyzing a range of late Pleistocene and early Holocene human remains from across the Bolivian Andes to build a comparative framework for addressing questions related to human health, ethnicity, kinship, and demographic processes in the context of early peopling of the New World. 

Publications

Maley B. Population Structure and Demographic History of Human Arctic Populations Using Quantitative cranial Traits. Ph.D. Thesis. Washington University in St. Louis, St. Louis., 2011

Trinkaus E, Maley B, and Buzhilova AP. Paleopathology of the Kiik-Koba 1 Neandertal. Am. J. Phys. Anthropol. 137: 106-112 , 2008

Maley B. Using Nested Clade Analysis to explore temporal change in ancient population structure with aDNA sequence data. Am. J. Phys. Anthropol. Suppl. 44: 69. , 2007

Maley B, Doubleday AF, Kaestle FA, and Mowbray K. Sorting out population structure and demographic history of the Tigara and Ipiutak cultures using ancient DNA analysis. Am. J. Phys. Anthropol. Suppl. 42: 124., 2006

Sawyer GJ and Maley B. Neanderthal Reconstructed. Anatomical Record B: New Anatomist. 283b (1): 23-31., 2005