Hunting to farming switch shortened ancient humans' height: study proves

A recent study had proven that switching from a hunter-gatherer lifestyle to farming shortened humans’ height, Daily Mail reported. 

Studies show that our ancestors had shifted from a hunter-gatherer lifestyle to agriculture nearly 12,000 years ago.

A research team analysed DNA samples from the remains of 167 ancient human bodies found around Europe. The bodies were dated to either before, after or around the time when farming emerged in Europe 12,000 years ago.

The study was conducted by Assistant research professor Stephanie Marciniak, at Penn State University’s Department of Anthropology in State College, Pennsylvania.

This study proves that the switch from forging top farming shortened the height of our ancestors by 1.5 inches.

The research suggests that the loss in height indicates poorer health and inadequate nutrition.

Professor Stephanie Marciniak said that they started thinking about the longstanding questions around the shift from hunting, gathering and foraging to sedentary farming and decided to look at the health effect with height as a proxy.

She said ‘Our approach is unique in that we used height measurements and ancient DNA was taken from the same individuals.’

The switch from a foraging lifestyle to a settled agricultural lifestyle, rather than simultaneously, happened in different places at different times.

The researchers studied 167 deceased human remains including 67 females and 100 males.

All the individuals lived from 38,000 to 2,400 years ago – so both before and after humans began growing their own crops around 12,000 years ago.

The researchers compared samples from bodies of humans show lived a hunter-gatherer life and the ones who settled in an agricultural lifestyle.

Also Read: Security heightened for joint Parliament session tomorrow

The research has been published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences journal.