Transition to Agriculture in Central Europe: Body Size and Body Shape amongst the First Farmers

Piontek, Janusz

doi:10.24916/iansa.2012.1.2

Cited by 10 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 37 publications

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“…Thus, existing evidence suggests that early life conditions may have been difficult for these Early Neolithic LBK populations, and it is expected that adult body size and/or patterns of sexual dimorphism will differ from those documented among the Late Mesolithic inhabitants of the Iron Gates. This expectation is supported by the findings of Piontek and Vančata [ 17 ]: the German LBK group in their study did exhibit drastically reduced body size relative to Late Upper Paleolithic and Mesolithic European groups as well as to contemporaneous Early Neolithic Corded Ware cultures. Sexual dimorphism in body size was also exceptionally high in this LBK group, reflecting higher values among males.…”

Section: Introductionsupporting

confidence: 85%

“…The intimate relationship between human biology and culture is particularly evident in the Holocene, with the development of agriculture as the primary mode of subsistence. Though not a universal pattern, subsistence shifts at the transition to farming have been associated with reduced adult body size and/or skeletal and dental evidence of poor diet and health when compared to the corresponding profiles of related hunter-gatherer populations [ 7 – 17 ]. These studies and others have provided insight into the difficult early life conditions often experienced by the first farming populations as they adjusted to major subsistence, socioeconomic, and demographic change.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…There are few inter-population assessments of the trends in adult body size and sexual dimorphism across the transition to farming in Central/Southeast Europe, and Mesolithic remains from Central Europe are scarce. Piontek and Vančata [ 17 ] reported a reduction in body size among some Early Neolithic Central European farming groups relative to preceding Mesolithic individuals from Germany, Britain, France, Spain, and Crimea. Similarly, among a larger sample of European Mesolithic and Neolithic populations, Berner and colleagues [ 18 ] identified a reduction in sexual dimorphism in stature and body mass across the transition to farming.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Early Life Conditions and Physiological Stress following the Transition to Farming in Central/Southeast Europe: Skeletal Growth Impairment and 6000 Years of Gradual Recovery

2016

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Early life conditions play an important role in determining adult body size. In particular, childhood malnutrition and disease can elicit growth delays and affect adult body size if severe or prolonged enough. In the earliest stages of farming, skeletal growth impairment and small adult body size are often documented relative to hunter-gatherer groups, though this pattern is regionally variable. In Central/Southeast Europe, it is unclear how early life stress, growth history, and adult body size were impacted by the introduction of agriculture and ensuing long-term demographic, social, and behavioral change. The current study assesses this impact through the reconstruction and analysis of mean stature, body mass, limb proportion indices, and sexual dimorphism among 407 skeletally mature men and women from foraging and farming populations spanning the Late Mesolithic through Early Medieval periods in Central/Southeast Europe (~7100 calBC to 850 AD). Results document significantly reduced mean stature, body mass, and crural index in Neolithic agriculturalists relative both to Late Mesolithic hunter-gatherer-fishers and to later farming populations. This indication of relative growth impairment in the Neolithic, particularly among women, is supported by existing evidence of high developmental stress, intensive physical activity, and variable access to animal protein in these early agricultural populations. Among subsequent agriculturalists, temporal increases in mean stature, body mass, and crural index were more pronounced among Central European women, driving declines in the magnitude of sexual dimorphism through time. Overall, results suggest that the transition to agriculture in Central/Southeast Europe was challenging for early farming populations, but was followed by gradual amelioration across thousands of years, particularly among Central European women. This sex difference may be indicative, in part, of greater temporal variation in the social status afforded to young girls, in their access to resources during growth, and/or in their health status than was experienced by men.

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Section: Introductionsupporting

confidence: 85%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Early Life Conditions and Physiological Stress following the Transition to Farming in Central/Southeast Europe: Skeletal Growth Impairment and 6000 Years of Gradual Recovery

2016

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“…Some examples: knowledge from geology, mineralogy and petrography is used to understand the properties of stones for tools, and the effects of volcanic eruptions (Sigurdsson, Cashdollar and Sparks 1982; Goldberg and Macphail 2006; Zastawnya et al 2013); botany provides understandings of the use and domestication of plants and agricultural developments; palynology augments studies of prehistoric climate and diets (Molloy and O’Connell 2004; Moe et al . 2007); zoology and ethology are used to understand animal characteristics (including the agency of animals), for analyses of hunting, domestication and other interactions with animals (see references above); biochemical DNA analyses are mandatory for studying human evolution (Ovchinnikov et al 2000; Dalton 2010); dentistry, physiology and pathology are used to estimate age, sex, nutritional aspects, disease and causes of death from human bodily remains (Prag and Neave 1997; Piontek and Vančata 2012; Myszka, Piontek and Miłosz 2012); and cognitive psychology and neuropsychology highlight the cognitive processes connected to the cultural changes occurring in the Upper Palaeolithic (Renfrew and Zubrow 1994; Corballis and Lea 1999; Wynn 2002).…”

Section: ‘Things In-themselves’ = the Nature Of Thingsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Agency ‘in itself’. A discussion of inanimate, animal and human agency

Lindstrøm¹

2015

Arch. Dial.

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Agency', the concept, its connections to ontology and its uses within archaeological theory, are discussed and criticized. In recent archaeological theory, the term 'agency' has been attributed to things, plants, animals and humans. In this paper it is argued that the term 'agency' is logically meaningless if applied to everything that moves or has effects on its surroundings, and that we need a new, more precise terminology that discriminates between 'agency', 'effect', 'actant' and 'effectant'. That people, of all cultures, perceive and experience things/objects as having agency is explained as being due to projections of human characteristics, human psycho-neurological functioning, and the fact that all individuals and cultures are deeply involved with and dependent on things/objects. Connected to this, questions regarding different ontologies, animism, ethics and sciences are discussed. The paper presents a critique of symmetrical archaeology and materiality studies. Broader paradigmatic perspectives, more theoretical and methodological inclusiveness, and more interand trans-disciplinary endeavours are suggested to increase archaeology's 'agency'.

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“…1997). Methods were described in detail elsewhere (Piontek and Vančata 2012;Vančata 2000Vančata , 2003Vančata and Charvátová 2001). Body mass reconstruction according to non-mechanical method was made using equations proposed by Ruf et al (2005).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%