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Around 10,000 y ago in southwest Asia, the cessation of a mobile lifestyle and the emergence of the first village communities during the Neolithic marked a fundamental change in human history. The first communities were small (tens to hundreds of individuals) but remained semisedentary. So-called megasites appeared soon after, occupied by thousands of more sedentary inhabitants. Accompanying this shift, the material culture and ancient ecological data indicate profound changes in economic and social behavior. A shift from residential to logistical mobility and increasing population size are clear and can be explained by either changes in fertility and/or aggregation of local groups. However, as sedentism increased, small early communities likely risked inbreeding without maintaining or establishing exogamous relationships typical of hunter-gatherers. Megasites, where large populations would have made endogamy sustainable, could have avoided this risk. To examine the role of kinship practices in the rise of megasites, we measured strontium and oxygen isotopes in tooth enamel from 99 individuals buried at Pınarbaşı, Boncuklu, and Çatalhöyük (Turkey) over 7,000 y. These sites are geographically proximate and, critically, span both early sedentary behaviors (Pınarbaşı and Boncuklu) and the rise of a local megasite (Çatalhöyük). Our data are consistent with the presence of only local individuals at Pınarbaşı and Boncuklu, whereas at Çatalhöyük, several nonlocals are present. The Çatalhöyük data stand in contrast to other megasites where bioarchaeological evidence has pointed to strict endogamy. These different kinship behaviors suggest that megasites may have arisen by employing unique, community-specific kinship practices.

Climate change is an indisputable threat to human health, especially for societies already confronted with rising social inequality, political and economic uncertainty, and a cascade of concurrent environmental challenges. Archaeological data about past climate and environment provide an important source of evidence about the potential challenges humans face and the long-term outcomes of alternative short-term adaptive strategies. Evidence from well-dated archaeological human skeletons and mummified remains speaks directly to patterns of human health over time through changing circumstances. Here, we describe variation in human epidemiological patterns in the context of past rapid climate change (RCC) events and other periods of past environmental change. Case studies confirm that human communities responded to environmental changes in diverse ways depending on historical, sociocultural, and biological contingencies. Certain factors, such as social inequality and disproportionate access to resources in large, complex societies may influence the probability of major sociopolitical disruptions and reorganizations—commonly known as “collapse.” This survey of Holocene human–environmental relations demonstrates how flexibility, variation, and maintenance of Indigenous knowledge can be mitigating factors in the face of environmental challenges. Although contemporary climate change is more rapid and of greater magnitude than the RCC events and other environmental changes we discuss here, these lessons from the past provide clarity about potential priorities for equitable, sustainable development and the constraints of modernity we must address.

Summary The social organization of the first fully sedentary societies that emerged during the Neolithic period in Southwest Asia remains enigmatic,1 mainly because material culture studies provide limited insight into this issue. However, because Neolithic Anatolian communities often buried their dead beneath domestic buildings,2 household composition and social structure can be studied through these human remains. Here, we describe genetic relatedness among co-burials associated with domestic buildings in Neolithic Anatolia using 59 ancient genomes, including 22 new genomes from Aşıklı Höyük and Çatalhöyük. We infer pedigree relationships by simultaneously analyzing multiple types of information, including autosomal and X chromosome kinship coefficients, maternal markers, and radiocarbon dating. In two early Neolithic villages dating to the 9th and 8th millennia BCE, Aşıklı Höyük and Boncuklu, we discover that siblings and parent-offspring pairings were frequent within domestic structures, which provides the first direct indication of close genetic relationships among co-burials. In contrast, in the 7th millennium BCE sites of Çatalhöyük and Barcın, where we study subadults interred within and around houses, we find close genetic relatives to be rare. Hence, genetic relatedness may not have played a major role in the choice of burial location at these latter two sites, at least for subadults. This supports the hypothesis that in Çatalhöyük,3, 4, 5 and possibly in some other Neolithic communities, domestic structures may have served as burial location for social units incorporating biologically unrelated individuals. Our results underscore the diversity of kin structures in Neolithic communities during this important phase of sociocultural development., Highlights • Genetic kinship estimated from co-buried individuals’ genomes in Neolithic Anatolia • Close relatives are common among co-burials in Aşıklı and Boncuklu • Many unrelated infants found buried in the same building in Çatalhöyük and Barcın • Neolithic societies in Southwest Asia may have held diverse concepts of kinship, Yaka et al. use ancient genomes from Neolithic Anatolia and present evidence for diverse concepts of social kinship in Neolithic societies. In some communities, like Çatalhöyük, many genetically unrelated infants were buried together inside the same buildings, whereas in other sites, people buried together were frequently close biological kin.

OBJECTIVES The transition from foraging to farming is usually associated with unprecedented population densities coupled with an increase in fertility and population growth. However, little is known about the biological effects of such demographic changes during the Neolithic. In the present work, we test the relationship between diachronic changes in population size, relative exposure to developmental stressors, and patterns of dental fluctuating asymmetry in the Neolithic population of Catalhoyuk (Turkey, 7,100-5,950 cal BC). MATERIALS AND METHODS We calculate fluctuating asymmetry of mesio-distal and bucco-lingual diameters of upper and lower permanent canines and first and second molars on a large (N = 259) sample representing adults of both sexes and various age classes. RESULTS Results show only a moderate decrease of fluctuating asymmetry during the late phase of occupation of the site, possibly linked to a decrease in population density, and no differences in asymmetry between sexes. DISCUSSION Though preliminary, our data reflect the presence of developmental stressors throughout the occupation of the site, albeit with a slight improvement in living conditions during the latest periods of occupation. At the same time, these data confirm the key role of diet as buffer against the detrimental effects of fluctuating demographic pressures on the biology of prehistoric human populations.

Long-distance exchange of copper objects during the Archaic Period (ca. 8000-3000 cal B.P.) is a bellwether of emergent social complexity in the Eastern Woodlands. Originating from the Great Lakes, the Canadian Maritimes, and the Appalachian Mountains, Archaic-age copper is found in significant amounts as far south as Tennessee and in isolated pockets at major trade centers in Louisiana but is absent from most of the southeastern United States. Here we report the discovery of a copper band found with the cremated remains of at least seven individuals buried in the direct center of a Late Archaic shell ring located in coastal Georgia. Late Archaic shell rings are massive circular middens thought to be constructed, in part, during large-scale ritual gatherings and feasting events. The exotic copper and cremated remains are unique in coastal South Carolina and Georgia where Archaic-age cremations are conspicuously absent and no other Archaic copper objects have been reported. Elemental data produced through laser ablation inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry shows the copper originated from the Great Lakes, effectively extending Archaic copper exchange almost 1,000 km beyond its traditional boundaries. Similarities in mortuary practices and the presence of copper originating from the Great Lakes reveal the presence of long-distance exchange relations spanning vast portions of the eastern United States and suggest an unexpected level of societal complexity at shell ring localities. These findings are consistent with the hypothesis that elite actors solidified their positions through ritual gatherings and the long-distance exchange of exotic objects during the Archaic.

Adult stature variation is commonly attributed to differential stress-levels during develop- ment. However, due to selective mortality and heteroge- neous frailty, a population's tall stature may be more indicative of high selective pressures than of positive life conditions. This article examines stature in a biocultural context and draws parallels between bioarchaeological and living populations to explore the multidimensional- ity of stature variation in the past. This study investi- gates: 1) stature differences between archaeological populations exposed to low or high stress (inferred from skeletal indicators); 2) similarities in growth retardation patterns between archaeological and living groups; and 3) the apportionment of variance in growth outcomes at the regional level in archaeological and living popula- tions. Anatomical stature estimates were examined in relation to skeletal stress indicators (cribra orbitalia, porotic hyperostosis, linear enamel hypoplasia) in two medieval bioarchaeological populations. Stature and bio- cultural information were gathered for comparative liv- ing samples from South America. Results indicate 1) significant (P < 0.01) differences in stature between groups exposed to different levels of skeletal stress; 2) greater prevalence of stunting among living groups, with similar patterns in socially stratified archaeological and modern groups; and 3) a degree of regional variance in growth outcomes consistent with that observed for highly selected traits. The relationship between early stress and growth is confounded by several factors— including catch-up growth, cultural buffering, and social inequality. The interpretations of early life conditions based on the relationship between stress and stature should be advanced with caution. Am J Phys Anthropol

In this paper we present an overview of an increasingly global community of physical (biological) anthropologists as it pertains to the study of living human variation (human biology) and as it is represented in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology (AJPA), focusing especially on the period of 2001–2007, when Clark Spencer Larsen served as editor in chief. The journal was founded by Ales Hrdlicka in order to provide professional identity of physical (biological) anthropology as practiced in the United States. By the mid-twentieth century, the journal editorship under T. Dale Stewart called for greater presence of international research collaboration and publication in AJPA. By 1960, international collaboration and non-U.S. authorship began to have significant presence in the journal, a pattern that has continued to the present. As in the pre-2000 period, although non-U.S. contributions cover all major topics in human biology, they tend to focus on population genetics and population history. For th...

Osteoarthritis (OA) is a widespread degenerative disease of skeletal joints and is often associated with senescence in vertebrates. OA commonly results from excessive or abnormal mechanical loading of weight-bearing joints ('wear-and-tear'), arising from heavy long-term use or specific injuries; yet, in the absence of injury, the aetiology of OA remains obscure. We show that poor nutritional conditions experienced by moose (Alces alces) early in life are linked to greater prevalence of OA during senescence as well as reduced life expectancy. Moreover, we also found a negative relationship between kill rate by wolves (Canis lupus) and prevalence of OA, suggesting a potential connection between senescence of prey and the population ecology of predator-prey systems. This association between OA and early malnutrition also provides a basis for explaining the observation in anthropology that OA became more prevalent in native Americans as their diet become poorer - the result of relying more on corn and agriculture and less on hunting and gathering.

As a dental indicator of generalized physiological stress, enamel hypoplasia has been the subject of several Neandertal studies. While previous studies generally have found high frequencies of enamel hypoplasia in Neandertals, the significance of this finding varies with frequencies of enamel hypoplasia in comparative samples. The present investigation was undertaken to ascertain if the enamel hypoplasia evidence in Neandertals suggests a high level of physiological stress relative to a modern human foraging group, represented here by an archaeological sample of Inuit from Point Hope, Alaska. Unlike previous studies, this study focused specifically on linear enamel hypoplasia (LEH), emphasizing systemic over localized causes of this defect by considering LEH to be present in an individual only if LEH defects occur on two anterior teeth with overlapping crown formation periods. Moreover, this study is the first to evaluate the average growth disruption duration represented by these defects in Neandertals and a comparative foraging group. In the prevalence analysis, 7/18 Neandertal individuals (from Krapina and southern France) and 21/56 Neandertal anterior teeth were affected by LEH, or 38.9% and 37.5% respectively. These values do not differ significantly from those of the Inuit sample in which 8/21, or 38.1% of individuals, and 32/111, or 28.8% of anterior teeth were affected. For the growth disruption duration analysis, 22 defects representing separate episodes of growth disruption in Neandertals were compared with 22 defects in the Inuit group using three indicators of duration: the number of perikymata (growth increments) in the occlusal walls of LEH defects, the total number of perikymata within them, and defect width. Only one indicator, the total number of perikymata within defects, differed significantly between the Inuit and Neandertal groups (an average of 13.4 vs. 7.3 perikymata), suggesting that if there is any difference between them, the Inuit defects may actually represent longer growth disruptions than the Neandertal defects. Thus, while stress indicators other than linear enamel hypoplasia may eventually show that Neandertal populations were more stressed than those of modern foragers, the evidence from linear enamel hypoplasia does not lend support to this idea.

Animal source foods (ASF) have always been a constituent of human diets. Their pattern of use, however, changed in dramatic ways over the course of human evolution. Before 2 million years ago (mya), meat in particular was acquired opportunistically via hunting of small or young animals and scavenging of animals killed by other species. At some point after that time, humans began to hunt cooperatively, making possible the acquisition of meat from large game. The marked increase in human heights between 2.0 and 1.7 mya may be linked to more efficient means of acquiring meat, namely through hunting. The final pattern of meat (and other ASF) use before the modern era is associated with the shift from hunting and gathering beginning ∼10,000 y ago. This fundamental dietary change resulted in a narrowing of diet, reduced consumption of meat and increased focus on domesticated grains. The study of archaeological human remains from around the world reveals that this period in human dietary history saw a decline in health, including increased evidence of morbidity (poorer dental health, increased occlusal abnormalities, increased iron deficiency anemia, increased infection and bone loss). Human populations living in developing and developed settings today rely on meats with lipid compositions that when eaten in excess promote cardiovascular disease. As humans become more sedentary and eat more high fat foods, we can expect to see increases in heart disease, osteoporosis and other diseases of civilization. J. Nutr. 133: 3893S-3897S, 2003.

Skeletons represent the most direct evidence of the biology of past populations, and their study provides insight into health and well-being, dietary history, lifestyle (activity), violence and trauma, ancestry, and demography. These areas help inform our understanding of a range of issues, such as the causes and consequences of adaptive shifts in the past (e.g., foraging to farming, sedentarism), the biological impact of invasion and colonization, differential access to food and other resources (e.g., by gender or status), and conflict and warfare. Central to bioarchaeological inquiry are the interaction between biology and behavior and the role of environment on health and lifestyle. Bioarchaeological analysis has traditionally focused on local settings. However, important perspective on general questions of human adaptation is possible both regionally and globally.

Spencer Larsen Clark. Reconstructing Diet and Health in the American Southeast: Bioarchaeological Perspectives on the Historic Period in Spanish Florida. In: Revue belge de philologie et d'histoire, tome 80, fasc. 4, 2002. Histoire medievale, moderne et contemporaine - Middeleeuwse. moderne en hedendaagse geschiedenis. pp. 1423-1430.

The arrival of Europeans in the New World had profound and long-lasting results for the native peoples. The record for the impact of this fundamental change in culture, society, and biology of Native Americans is well documented historically. This paper reviews the biological impact of the arrival of Europeans on native populations via the study of pre- and postcontact skeletal remains in Spanish Florida, the region today represented by coastal Georgia and northern Florida. The postcontact skeletal series, mostly drawn from Roman Catholic mission sites, are among the most comprehensive in the Americas, providing a compelling picture of adaptation and stress in this setting. Study of paleopathology, dental and skeletal indicators of physiological stress, stable isotope (carbon and nitrogen) analysis, tooth microwear, and skeletal morphology (cross-sectional geometry) reveals major alterations in quality of life and lifestyle. The bioarchaeological record indicates a general deterioration in health, declining dietary diversity and nutritional quality, and increasing workload in the contact period. The impact of contact in Spanish Florida appears to have been more dramatic in comparison with other regions, which likely reflects the different nature of contact relations in this setting versus other areas (e.g., New England, New France). The bioarchaeological record represents an important information source for understanding the dynamics of biocultural change resulting from colonization and conquest.

It has been claimed that many Native American skeletons from the King site in Georgia show evidence of wounds from sharp-edged metal weapons that were wielded by members of the sixteenth-century de Soto expedition (Blakely and Mathews 1990). The supposed massacre of these villagers has caught the attention of the public and scholars alike. But we failed to find any evidence of damage caused by sixteenth-century Spanish weapons in our examination of the King site skeletons. Our finding-there is no evidence for a massacre-eliminates a major discrepancy between historical and archaeological information used in reconstructions of the de Soto route.

Dietary reconstruction using carbon and nitrogen stable isotopes from archaeological human bone samples from coastal Georgia and northern and Gulf Coast Florida dating between 400 B.C. and A.D. 1700 serves to illustrate the complexity of the agricultural transition in that region. Isotope analysis of 185 collagen samples drawn from early prehistoric, late prehistoric, and contact-period mortuary sites encompasses two major adaptive shifts in the region, namely the adoption of maize agriculture in late prehistory and the increased emphasis on maize during the mission period. Prior to European contact—and especially before the establishment of Spanish missions among the Guale, Yamasee, Timucua, and Apalachee tribal groups—diet was strongly influenced by local environmental factors. Before contact, coastal and inland populations had different patterns of food consumption, as did populations living in Georgia and Florida. Coastal populations consumed more marine and less terrestrial foods than inland populations. In general, maize was adopted during the eleventh century A.D. by virtually all Georgia populations. However, with the exception of the Lake Jackson site, a major Mississippian center in northern Florida, Florida populations show little use of maize before contact. Following European contact, maize became wide-spread, regardless of location or habitat within the broad region of Spanish Florida. Missionization appears to have been an important factor in the convergence of native diets toward agriculture and away from foraging. This increased emphasis on maize contributed to a decline in quality of life for native populations.

Adult stature variation is commonly attributed to differential stress-levels during development. However, due to selective mortality and heterogeneous frailty, a population’s tall stature may be more indicative of high selective pressures than of positive life conditions. This article examines stature in a biocultural context and draws parallels between bioarchaeological and living populations to explore the multidimensionality of stature variation in the past. This study investigates: 1) stature differences between archaeological populations exposed to low or high stress (inferred from skeletal indicators); 2) similarities in growth retardation patterns between archaeological and living groups; and 3) the apportionment of variance in growth outcomes at the regional level in archaeological and living populations. Anatomical stature estimates were examined in relation to skeletal stress indicators (cribra orbitalia, porotic hyperostosis, linear enamel hypoplasia) in two medieval bioarchaeological populations. Stature and biocultural information were gathered for comparative living samples from South America. Results indicate 1) significant (P < 0.01) differences in stature between groups exposed to different levels of skeletal stress; 2) greater prevalence of stunting among living groups, with similar patterns in socially stratified archaeological and modern groups; and 3) a degree of regional variance in growth outcomes consistent with that observed for highly selected traits. The relationship between early stress and growth is confounded by several factors—including catch-up growth, cultural buffering, and social inequality. The interpretations of early life conditions based on the relationship between stress and stature should be advanced with caution.

Les auteurs rapportent les resultats de l'etude du stress physiologique des Neandertaliens de l'abri sous roche de Krapina (Croatie). Le materiel dentaire etant predominant, la methode employee est l'analyse de l'email et particulierement des anomalies dues a des troubles metaboliques, indicateurs de l'etat de sante des individus etudies, ainsi qu'une etude de l'hypoplasie et de l'hypocalcification de l'email

Agriculture has long been regarded as an improvement in the human condition: Once Homo sapiens made the transition from foraging to farming in the Neolithic, health and nutrition improved, longevity increased, and work load declined. Recent study of archaeological human remains worldwide by biological anthropologists has shown this characterization of the shift from hunting and gathering to agriculture to be incorrect. Contrary to earlier models, the adoption of agriculture involved an overall decline in oral and general health. This decline is indicated by elevated prevalence of various skeletal and dental pathological conditions and alterations in skeletal and dental growth patterns in prehistoric farmers compared with foragers. In addition, changes in food composition and preparation technology contributed to craniofacial and dental alterations, and activity levels and mobility decline resulted in a general decrease in skeletal robusticity. These findings indicate that the shift from food collection to food production occasioned significant and widespread biological changes in human populations during the last 10,000 years.

The biocultural interpretation of skeletal remains is based upon the foundation of skeletal biology. In this review we examine the current state of skeletal biology research outside of the mainstream anthropology literature. The focus is on the structural changes of bone development and growth, and modeling and repair in the four bone surfaces: periosteal, Haversian, endosteal, and trabecular. The pattern of skeletal changes is placed within the framework of the human life span. New perspectives and direction of research on the environmental, biological, and genetic influences on modeling and remodeling processes are discussed chronologically at each bone surface. Implications for biological anthropologists are considered. This approach emphasizes variation in skeletal biology as a dynamic record of development, maturity, and aging. Yrbk Phys Anthropol 54:86–98, 2011. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Osteoarthritis (OA) is a widespread degenerative disease of skeletal joints and is often associated with senescence in vertebrates. OA commonly results from excessive or abnormal mechanical loading of weight-bearing joints ('wear-and-tear'), arising from heavy long-term use or specific injuries; yet, in the absence of injury, the aetiology of OA remains obscure. We show that poor nutritional conditions experienced by moose (Alces alces) early in life are linked to greater prevalence of OA during senescence as well as reduced life expectancy. Moreover, we also found a negative relationship between kill rate by wolves (Canis lupus) and prevalence of OA, suggesting a potential connection between senescence of prey and the population ecology of predator-prey systems. This association between OA and early malnutrition also provides a basis for explaining the observation in anthropology that OA became more prevalent in native Americans as their diet become poorer - the result of relying more on corn and agriculture and less on hunting and gathering.

A longstanding controversy in paleoanthropology surrounds the question of whether Neandertals shared the prolonged growth periods of modern humans. To address this question, this investigation compares the duration of enamel formation in Neandertals with that of three comparative modern human groups. Because dental and somatic growth are correlated with each other, dental growth periods are indicative of overall periods of growth. Growth increments on the anterior teeth of Neandertals, modern Inuit, and modern people from Newcastle and southern Africa were counted and their means compared. In addition, potential variation in the time spans represented by growth increments was considered and incorporated into the analysis of enamel formation times. These analyses show that Neandertal imbricational enamel formation times, although likely to have been faster than those of the Inuit, are not likely to have been faster than those of the Newcastle sample and for some teeth are clearly slower than those of the southern African sample. Thus, Neandertal tooth growth and, by extension, somatic growth, appears to be encompassed within the modern human range of interpopulation variation.

As a dental indicator of generalized physiological stress, enamel hypoplasia has been the subject of several Neandertal studies. While previous studies generally have found high frequencies of enamel hypoplasia in Neandertals, the significance of this finding varies with frequencies of enamel hypoplasia in comparative samples. The present investigation was undertaken to ascertain if the enamel hypoplasia evidence in Neandertals suggests a high level of physiological stress relative to a modern human foraging group, represented here by an archaeological sample of Inuit from Point Hope, Alaska. Unlike previous studies, this study focused specifically on linear enamel hypoplasia (LEH), emphasizing systemic over localized causes of this defect by considering LEH to be present in an individual only if LEH defects occur on two anterior teeth with overlapping crown formation periods. Moreover, this study is the first to evaluate the average growth disruption duration represented by these defects in Neandertals and a comparative foraging group. In the prevalence analysis, 7/18 Neandertal individuals (from Krapina and southern France) and 21/56 Neandertal anterior teeth were affected by LEH, or 38.9% and 37.5% respectively. These values do not differ significantly from those of the Inuit sample in which 8/21, or 38.1% of individuals, and 32/111, or 28.8% of anterior teeth were affected. For the growth disruption duration analysis, 22 defects representing separate episodes of growth disruption in Neandertals were compared with 22 defects in the Inuit group using three indicators of duration: the number of perikymata (growth increments) in the occlusal walls of LEH defects, the total number of perikymata within them, and defect width. Only one indicator, the total number of perikymata within defects, differed significantly between the Inuit and Neandertal groups (an average of 13.4 vs. 7.3 perikymata), suggesting that if there is any difference between them, the Inuit defects may actually represent longer growth disruptions than the Neandertal defects. Thus, while stress indicators other than linear enamel hypoplasia may eventually show that Neandertal populations were more stressed than those of modern foragers, the evidence from linear enamel hypoplasia does not lend support to this idea.

Since the publication of Charles Darwin's The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex in 1871 (1), there has been a vigorous debate about the meaning of sexual dimorphism for a range of physical attributes in numerous animal species, including primates and humans, extinct and extant. Key points of discussion are how to interpret size dimorphism in past humans and human-like ancestors and what inferences can be drawn about the evolution of human mating systems and social organization. In this issue of PNAS, Reno et al. (2) report on their investigation of sexual dimorphism in the three-million-year-old Australopithecus afarensis , an important and well known hominid, ancestral to the genus Homo (3). Insight into dimorphism in this taxon has important implications for social behavior and organization in later and present-day humans. Body mass dimorphism varies dramatically among primate species, both present and past. For most anthropoids, males are bigger than females (4–8). Humans today display relatively limited sexual dimorphism (≈15%), whereas some of the other hominoids (gorillas and orangutans) are highly dimorphic (>50%) (5, 9). Body mass is easily determined in living species. For past nonhuman primates and human ancestors, mostly represented by fragmentary fossil remains, body mass is far less accessible. Recently, the femur head (the ball of bone at the top of the femur that fits into the hip joint) has been invoked as a source for estimating body mass in early hominids, Homo , and its evolutionary predecessor, Australopithecus (10, 11). Comparisons of body mass in fossil hominids reveal that general levels …

Investigations of skeletal remains from key archaeological sites reveal new data and offer insights on prehistoric life and health in the Southeast.The shift from foraging to farming had important health consequences for prehistoric peoples, but variations in health existedwithin communities that had made this transition. This new collection draws on the rich bioarchaeological record of the Southeastern United States to explore variability in health and behavior within the age of agriculture. It offers new perspectives on human adaptation to various geographic and cultural landscapes across the entire Southeast, from Texas to Virginia, and presents new data from both classic and little-known sites.The contributors question the reliance on simple cause-and-effect relationships in human health and behavior by addressing such key bioarchaeological issues as disease history and epidemiology, dietary composition and sufficiency, workload stress, patterns of violence, mortuary practices, and biological consequences of European contact. They also advance our understanding of agriculture by showing that uses of maize were more varied than has been previously supposed.Representing some of the best work being done today by physical anthropologists, this volume provides new insights into human adaptation for both archaeologists and osteologists. It attests to the heterogeneous character of Southeastern societies during the late prehistoric and early historic periods while effectively detailing the many factors that have shaped biocultural evolution.Contributors include: Patricia S. Bridges, Elizabeth Monaham Driscoll, Debra L. Gold, Dale L. Hutchinson, Keith P. Jacobi, Patricia M. Lambert, Clark Spencer Larsen, Lynette Norr, Mary Lucas Powell, Marianne Reeves, Lisa Sattenspiel, Margaret J. Schoeninger, Mark R. Schurr, Leslie E. Sering, David S. Weaver, and Matthew A. Williamson

The present research was undertaken to delineate and explain human skeletal size change associated with the shift in subsistence mode from hunting and gathering (1000 B.C.-A.D. 1150) to a mixed economy utilizing, in part, corn agriculture (A.D. 1150–1550) on the prehistoric Georgia coast. The variables analyzed include 20 measurements of external postcranial size involving the femoral, tibial, and humeral skeletal elements. Univariate statistical treatment reveals significant size reduction in many dimensions of the postcranial skeleton (Student's t-test: P

The transition from a human diet based exclusively on wild plants and animals to one involving dependence on domesticated plants and animals beginning 10,000 to 11,000 y ago in Southwest Asia set into motion a series of profound health, lifestyle, social, and economic changes affecting human populations throughout most of the world. However, the social, cultural, behavioral, and other factors surrounding health and lifestyle associated with the foraging-to-farming transition are vague, owing to an incomplete or poorly understood contextual archaeological record of living conditions. Bioarchaeological investigation of the extraordinary record of human remains and their context from Neolithic Çatalhöyük (7100–5950 cal BCE), a massive archaeological site in south-central Anatolia (Turkey), provides important perspectives on population dynamics, health outcomes, behavioral adaptations, interpersonal conflict, and a record of community resilience over the life of this single early farming settlement having the attributes of a protocity. Study of Çatalhöyük human biology reveals increasing costs to members of the settlement, including elevated exposure to disease and labor demands in response to community dependence on and production of domesticated plant carbohydrates, growing population size and density fueled by elevated fertility, and increasing stresses due to heightened workload and greater mobility required for caprine herding and other resource acquisition activities over the nearly 12 centuries of settlement occupation. These changes in life conditions foreshadow developments that would take place worldwide over the millennia following the abandonment of Neolithic Çatalhöyük, including health challenges, adaptive patterns, physical activity, and emerging social behaviors involving interpersonal violence., John Templeton Foundation; National Geographic Society Committee for Research and Exploration; Investments for the Future Program, Initiative d’Excellence of the University of Bordeaux; European Union (European Union); Horizon 2020; European Commission H2020 Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions Program; Collaborative Projects of the France–Stanford Center for Interdisciplinary Studies; National Science Foundation; American Research Institute in Turkey; American Association of Physical Anthropologists Professional Development Grant

Comparaison de la dentition des individus de deux sites funeraires, l'un d'epoque pre-agricole et l'autre d'epoque agricole de la cote de Georgie. Une tendance a la reduction des dimensions est mise en evidence.