Lecture Slides

THIRD EDITION

Essentials of Physical

Anthropology

Clark Spencer Larsen

Our Last 10,000 Years: Agriculture, Population,

Biology

• Larsen. Essentials of Physical Anthropology

13

Our Last 10,000 Years: Agriculture, Population, Biology

Corbis

Illustration Copyright © 2013 Nucleus Medical

Media, All rights reserved. www.nucleusinc.com Illustration Copyright © 2013 Nucleus Medical

Media, All rights reserved. www.nucleusinc.com

Cartoon by Ron Theriencartoonstock.com

Our Last 10,000 Years: Agriculture, Population, Biology

• Questions addressed in this chapter: – When, where, and why did agriculture first

develop?

– How did agriculture affect human living circumstances?

– How did agriculture affect human biological change?

– What are the most important forces shaping human biology today?

– Are we still evolving?

The Agricultural Revolution: New Foods and New Adaptations

Corbis; Scott Haddow Jim Holmes/Getty Images

The Agricultural Revolution: New Foods and New Adaptations

• Why agriculture? – Climate stability and

emergence out of the last ice age

– Population growth

Photo by John Doebley

Photo by John Doebley

Regional Variation in Domestication

Figure 13.5B: Bruce D. Smith: Figure “The approximate time periods when plants and

animals were first domesticated” from The Emergence of Agriculture, p. 13, 1998.

Reprinted by permission

Fertile Crescent

Villages and Cities: Ҫatalhöyük

blickwinkel / Alamy

National Geographic Image Collection /

Alamy

Plant & Animal Domestication Around the World and its Diffusion

• China and Southwestern Asia – Rice domesticated ~8,000 years ago

• Mexico – Corn domesticated ~9,000 years ago – Spread to American Southwest and to Atlantic coast by 1,000 years

ago

• Animal domestication – Dogs, goats, sheep, cattle, and pigs

Corbis

Agriculture: An Adaptive Trade-Off

• Neolithic Demographic Transition – High birthrate, rapid weaning

– 2–3 million, 10,000 years ago

– 300 million by 2,000 years ago.

– 7 billion today

Colin Renfrew and Paul Bahn: Figure drawn by Annick Boothe. From Archaeology: Theories, Methods and

Practice by Colin Renfrew and Paul Bahn, Thames & Hudson Inc., New York. Reprinted by permission of the

publisher

The Good and Bad of Agriculture

Agriculture and Human Biology. The Masticatory-Functional Hypothesis

How Did Agriculture Affect Human Biology? The Skull

How Did Agriculture Affect Human Biology? The Skeleton

• Activity patterns

– Modern hunter–gatherers

• Lee & DeVore (1960s)

• Variation dependent on local ecology and food

Peter Johnson/Corbis

How Did Agriculture Affect Human Biology? The Skeleton

• Activity patterns

– Ancient populations?

• Biomechanics

• More bone = more strength

• I beam

How Did Agriculture Affect Human Biology? The Skeleton

Roberto Osti: Figure “Bones of the Postcontact Indians” from “Reading the Bones

of La Florida” by Clark S. Larsen, Scientific American, Vol. 282, No. 6, p. 84. Reprinted

by permission of Roberto Osti Illustrations

How Did Agriculture Affect Human Biology? The Skeleton.

Clark Larsen/Mark Griffin

Health and the Agricultural Revolution: Disease

• Agriculture

– Population increase + sedentary lifestyle = overcrowding & disease

– Periosteal reaction • Staph infection

Clark Spencer Larsen

Health and the Agricultural Revolution: Disease

• Diseases of the Neolithic – Treponematoses

(syphilis, yaws)

– Tuberculosis, measles, mumps, cholera, flu, small pox

– Not just introduced by European colonization

Tracy K. Betsinger

Health and the Agricultural Revolution: Tooth Decay

• Domesticated plants high in carbohydrates

– Bacteria produce lactic acid

Clark Spencer Larsen Donald J. Ortner, Smithsonian Institution

Scimat/Science Source

Clark S. Larsen: Figure 3.2 “Percentage of teeth affected by dental

caries in eastern North America” from Bioarchaeology:

Interpreting Behavior from the Human Skeleton, p. 69, Cambridge

University Press, 1997.

Health and the Agricultural Revolution: Nutrition

• Dietary variety critical for proper growth

– Lacking in agriculturalists

– Results in nutritional deficiencies

– Detected by enamel hypoplasias

Barry Stark

Health and the Agricultural Revolution: Nutrition

• Iron deficiency (anemia)

– Lack of meat

– Corn reduces iron absorption

– Hookworm causes iron loss

– Skeletal indicators • Porotic hyperostosis

• Cribra orbitalia

David Scharf/Science Source

Clark Spencer Larsen

Mark C. Griffin

Health Costs of Agriculture

Our Ongoing Evolution

Lecture Slides

Essentials of Physical Anthropology

Clark Spencer Larsen

THIRD EDITION