An integrative skeletal and paleogenomic analysis of stature variation suggests relatively reduced health for early European farmers

Significance Subsistence shifts from hunting and gathering to agriculture over the last 12,000 y have impacted human culture, biology, and health. Although past human health cannot be assessed directly, adult stature variation and skeletal indicators of nonspecific stress can serve as proxies for health during growth and development. By integrating paleogenomic genotype and osteological stature data on a per-individual basis for 167 prehistoric Europeans, we observe relatively shorter than expected statures among early farmers after correcting for individual genetic contributions to stature. Poorer nutrition and/or increased disease burdens for early agriculturalists may partly underscore this result. Our integrated osteological–genetic model has exciting potential for studies of past human health and expansion into various other contexts.

• Publication year

  2022

• Venue

  Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America

• Publication date

  2022-04-06

• Fields of study

  Biology, Medicine, Environmental Science, History

• Identifiers
  DOI 10.1073/pnas.2106743119PMID 35389750PMCID 9169634
• External record

  Open on Semantic Scholar

• Source metadata

  Semantic Scholar, PubMed

• No claims are published for this paper.

• No concepts are published for this paper.

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