Human size (Introduction)

by David Turell , Wednesday, May 20, 2015, 14:34 (3474 days ago)

You are what you do. Visit England and try to walk through Elizabethan house doors without stooping. Visit American western pioneer museums and marvel at the small clothes. Agriculture brought smaller size compared to hunter gatherer folks of the past:-http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/05/150518163836.htm-"Modern lifestyles have famously made humans heavier, but, in one particular way, noticeably lighter weight than our hunter-gatherer ancestors: in the bones. Now a new study of the bones of hundreds of humans who lived during the past 33,000 years in Europe finds the rise of agriculture and a corresponding fall in mobility drove the change, rather than urbanization, nutrition or other factors.-*****-"Ruff notes that Paleolithic-style bones are still likely achievable, at least for younger humans, if they recreate to some extent the lifestyle of their ancestors, notably doing a lot more walking than their peers. He cites studies of professional athletes that have demonstrated how lifestyle is written in our bones. "The difference in bone strength between a professional tennis player's arms is about the same as that between us and Paleolithic humans," he says."