Archaeologica.org

Posted earlier by manystones.

The gracilisation humans experienced in the Final Pleistocene and Holocene is attributed not to evolutionary processes, but to cultural intervention through breeding preferences leading to the neotenous features characterising present-day humans”.

Note it states 'breeding preferences'. Like I said, that has to be guess work.

http://www.sussexpast.co.uk/longman/

This cutting in the chalk is only a few hundred years old and we can't account for why people did it and maintained it for a long period of time. Nobody as yet has given a definitive reason for the cave art of France and Spain. Their mindset could be totally alien to us, look at the attitude of Japanese soldiers during WWII, totally alien to the west, and this is only a few years ago.

Forum Monk wrote:Richard,
does the author imply that slighter builds are somehow inferior? Considering the enormous energy required to fuel a large brain, how much more so a large frame.

but our brains shrunk too....

and our bones got weaker...

Manystones wrote:but our brains shrunk too....

and our bones got weaker...

And so we have become less energy dependent and more capable of surviving when foods are scarce.


(Unfortunately today we are more than making up for reduced dependence on energy...that lighter brain figured out how to make SUVs! )

Manystones wrote:Bednarik notes that one of the most important issues for archaeologists and palaeoanthropologists has been ineffectively tackled if at all:

Why did humans of the Late Pleistocene develop into inferior forms not only in Europe, but in all four continents occupied at the time?

Why was an historic trend toward robusticity reversed leading to rapid gracilisation?

Richard, do you have a link to Bednariks discussioon on this? I can probably Google it but you may have it handy.

And I'd like him to define 'inferior' as well.

Digit wrote:And I'd like him to define 'inferior' as well.

Decreases in:

brain size, skeletal robustness and muscle power.

And neotenous features.

And again, to quote from the original RAR article:

"The search for physical modernity is itself misguided (Tobias 1995), modernity is indicated by cognition and culture, and more specifically by the external storage of cultural information (Donald 1993), and not by cranial architecture or other minor physical differences."

Forum Monk wrote:And so we have become less energy dependent and more capable of surviving when foods are scarce.

That'll be why our planets resources are shrinking then yeah?

Intelligent civilisation?

Manystones wrote:That'll be why our planets resources are shrinking then yeah?

Intelligent civilisation?

whoa!
I didn't say anything about intelligent.

I am just pre-empting any further remarks about "inferior"

But unfotunately for the argument MS it appears that the inferiors survived and the superiors didn't. Gives a new meaning to inferior doesn't it?

Or rather we unwittingly domesticated ourselves.

Gives a new meaning to stupid.

“Breeding Preferences???”
Wasn’t it Robin Williams that said something to the effect of
“What kind of God gave me two heads, and only enough blood for one at a time?”
That is a leather easy chair with a brandy at the club opinion if I ever heard one.
That guy needs to spend more time on the street on Friday nights.
He will learn all about breeding preferences.
I have to go now. My “breeding preference” just signaled it is time for dinner.
That is important now, but I do not recall it was at the time of selection.

There's a saying over here Min about courting an older woman. The Sex may not be so great but you get lovely breakfasts!

Indeed we are smaller and our bones are less dense than our ancestors. We also lack their overall strength.

But there must be a highly adaptive reason for gracilization. It began in Africa but soon enough the gene (if it is a gene) flew through other populations. Again, the picture often given of Africans sweeping up and around the globe is one that I've always found ridiculous. But this gene did. And it is a mystery.