A relict is a surviving remnant of a natural phenomenon.
Biology
A relict (or relic) is an organism that at an earlier time was abundant in a large area but now occurs at only one or a few small areas.
Geology and geomorphology
In
geology, a relict is a structure or mineral from a parent rock that did not undergo metamorphosis when the surrounding rock did, or a rock that survived a destructive geologic process.
In
geomorphology
Geomorphology (from Ancient Greek: , ', "earth"; , ', "form"; and , ', "study") is the scientific study of the origin and evolution of topographic and bathymetric features created by physical, chemical or biological processes operating at or n ...
, a relict landform is a
landform
A landform is a natural or anthropogenic land feature on the solid surface of the Earth or other planetary body. Landforms together make up a given terrain, and their arrangement in the landscape is known as topography. Landforms include hills, ...
formed by either erosive or constructive surficial processes that are no longer active as they were in the past.
A
glacial relict is a cold-adapted organism that is a remnant of a larger distribution that existed in the
ice ages.
Human populations
As revealed by
DNA testing, a relict population is an ancient people in an area, who have been largely supplanted by a later group of migrants and their descendants.
In various places around the world, minority
ethnic group
An ethnic group or an ethnicity is a grouping of people who identify with each other on the basis of shared attributes that distinguish them from other groups. Those attributes can include common sets of traditions, ancestry, language, history, ...
s represent lineages of ancient
human migrations in places now occupied by more populous ethnic groups, whose ancestors arrived later. For example, the first human groups to inhabit the Caribbean islands were
hunter-gatherer
A traditional hunter-gatherer or forager is a human living an ancestrally derived lifestyle in which most or all food is obtained by foraging, that is, by gathering food from local sources, especially edible wild plants but also insects, fungi, ...
tribes from South and Central America.
Genetic testing
Genetic testing, also known as DNA testing, is used to identify changes in DNA sequence or chromosome structure. Genetic testing can also include measuring the results of genetic changes, such as RNA analysis as an output of gene expression, or ...
of natives of Cuba show that, in late pre-Columbian times, the island was home to agriculturalists of
Taino ethnicity. In addition, a relict population of the original hunter-gatherers remained in western Cuba as the
Ciboney people.
Other uses
* In ecology, an
ecosystem which originally ranged over a large expanse, but is now narrowly confined, may be termed a relict.
* In
agronomy
Agronomy is the science and technology of producing and using plants by agriculture for food, fuel, fiber, chemicals, recreation, or land conservation. Agronomy has come to include research of plant genetics, plant physiology, meteorology, and ...
, a relict crop is a crop which was previously grown extensively, but is now only used in one limited region, or a small number of isolated regions.
* In
real estate law, reliction is the gradual recession of water from its usual high-water mark so that the newly uncovered land becomes the property of the adjoining
riparian property owner.
[Lear, P.W. 1991, ''Accretion, reliction, erosion, and avulsion: a survey of riparian and littoral title problems.'' Journal of Energy, Natural Resources & Environmental Law. vol. 11, pp. 265-285.]
* "Relict" was an ancient term still used in colonial (British) America, and in England and Ireland of that era, now archaic, for a
widow; it has come to be a generic or collective term for widows and widowers.
* In
historical linguistics, a relict is a word that is a survivor of a form or forms that are otherwise archaic.
See also
*
*
Endemism
*
Hysteresis
Hysteresis is the dependence of the state of a system on its history. For example, a magnet may have more than one possible magnetic moment in a given magnetic field, depending on how the field changed in the past. Plots of a single component of ...
*
Living fossil
*
Refugium (population biology)
*
Relic
In religion, a relic is an object or article of religious significance from the past. It usually consists of the physical remains of a saint or the personal effects of the saint or venerated person preserved for purposes of veneration as a tangi ...
*
Palaeochannel
References
{{reflist, 2
Biogeography
Geology terminology
Historical linguistics
Biology terminology