First European Farmers' Heights Did Not Meet Expectations
Published:12 Apr.2022 Source:Penn State
A combined study of genetics and skeletal remains show that the switch from primarily hunting, gathering and foraging to farming about 12,000 years ago in Europe may have had negative health effects as indicated by shorter than expected heights in the earliest farmers, according to an international team of researchers.
"Recent studies tried to characterize the contribution of DNA to height," said Stephanie Marciniak, assistant research professor, Penn State. "We started thinking about the longstanding questions around the shift from hunting, gathering and foraging to sedentary farming and decided to look at the health affect with height as a proxy."