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>------ Forwarded Message
>From: Secco Emanuele Lindo
>Reply-To: Secco Emanuele Lindo
>Date: Tue, 22 May 2001 17:57:57 +0200
>To: BIOMCH-L@NIC.SURFNET.NL
>Subject: Secco - length of hum. arm during the history
>
>Is there an article/book (or something similar) that reports the lengths
>of arm and forearm of the man during the different age in the history ?
>(for example: the lengths of the arm in the iron age was about ...., in
>the middle age ...., about the homo sapiens ...)
Dear Colleague(s):
There is information of the sort that you seek, but it is perhaps more
complex than you might wish. That is, although human evolution commonly is
presented as a set of sequential developments (e.g. over the last six
million years there has been an general increase in body size, with overall
gains in stature, reduction in forelimb length, increase in hind limb
length, etc.), much of the data are highly population specific, and the
variations among population means are very great. To take just one example
on which I have worked in detail (examinations of hundreds of skeletons and
thousands of living subjects), in Peru over the period from ten thousand
years ago to four thousand years ago, average stature decreased by about 20
cm.; in the current period (living Peruvian populations), the generations
of parents and their children can differ easily by 6 to 8 centimeters,
depending on nutrition, altitude, disease experience, etc. Limb lengths do
not scale up or down 1:1 as these changes occur; allometry is a very real
phenomenon.
The underlying principles (natural selection and shorter-term adaptative
mechanisms such as developmental plasticity, etc), a lot of data, and
roughly 60 pages of references can be found in a book that I completed last
year:
Eckhardt, Robert B. 2000. Human Paleobiology. Cambridge University Press.
ISBN 0 521 45160 4
After you have had a look at this work, if you have further specific
questions, please feel free to contact me. All good wishes. RBE
>
>Thanks to the moderator for the possible acceptation of the question,
>and thanks to the members for their possible suggestions,
>
> Emanuele Lindo
>
>--
>
>Secco Emanuele Lindo
>Dip. Informatica e Sistemistica
>Università di Pavia
>Via Ferrata, 1 - 27100 Pavia - Italia
>cell. +39 (0)347 98.21.21.1
>tel. +39 (0)382 50.53.52
>fax. +39 (0)382 50.53.73
>
>Emanuele@bioing.unipv.it
>
>http://dis.unipv.it/
>
>"What is the formula for the journey to the ultimate meaning of reality?
>
>Living the real.
>The only condition for being truly and faithfully religious is
>to live always the real intensely, without negating or forgetting
>anything."
>
>(Giussani L., The Religious Sense, McGill-Queen's University Press,
>1997, p. 108)
>
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>
>
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---------------------------------------------------------------
>From: Secco Emanuele Lindo
>Reply-To: Secco Emanuele Lindo
>Date: Tue, 22 May 2001 17:57:57 +0200
>To: BIOMCH-L@NIC.SURFNET.NL
>Subject: Secco - length of hum. arm during the history
>
>Is there an article/book (or something similar) that reports the lengths
>of arm and forearm of the man during the different age in the history ?
>(for example: the lengths of the arm in the iron age was about ...., in
>the middle age ...., about the homo sapiens ...)
Dear Colleague(s):
There is information of the sort that you seek, but it is perhaps more
complex than you might wish. That is, although human evolution commonly is
presented as a set of sequential developments (e.g. over the last six
million years there has been an general increase in body size, with overall
gains in stature, reduction in forelimb length, increase in hind limb
length, etc.), much of the data are highly population specific, and the
variations among population means are very great. To take just one example
on which I have worked in detail (examinations of hundreds of skeletons and
thousands of living subjects), in Peru over the period from ten thousand
years ago to four thousand years ago, average stature decreased by about 20
cm.; in the current period (living Peruvian populations), the generations
of parents and their children can differ easily by 6 to 8 centimeters,
depending on nutrition, altitude, disease experience, etc. Limb lengths do
not scale up or down 1:1 as these changes occur; allometry is a very real
phenomenon.
The underlying principles (natural selection and shorter-term adaptative
mechanisms such as developmental plasticity, etc), a lot of data, and
roughly 60 pages of references can be found in a book that I completed last
year:
Eckhardt, Robert B. 2000. Human Paleobiology. Cambridge University Press.
ISBN 0 521 45160 4
After you have had a look at this work, if you have further specific
questions, please feel free to contact me. All good wishes. RBE
>
>Thanks to the moderator for the possible acceptation of the question,
>and thanks to the members for their possible suggestions,
>
> Emanuele Lindo
>
>--
>
>Secco Emanuele Lindo
>Dip. Informatica e Sistemistica
>Università di Pavia
>Via Ferrata, 1 - 27100 Pavia - Italia
>cell. +39 (0)347 98.21.21.1
>tel. +39 (0)382 50.53.52
>fax. +39 (0)382 50.53.73
>
>Emanuele@bioing.unipv.it
>
>http://dis.unipv.it/
>
>"What is the formula for the journey to the ultimate meaning of reality?
>
>Living the real.
>The only condition for being truly and faithfully religious is
>to live always the real intensely, without negating or forgetting
>anything."
>
>(Giussani L., The Religious Sense, McGill-Queen's University Press,
>1997, p. 108)
>
>---------------------------------------------------------------
>To unsubscribe send SIGNOFF BIOMCH-L to LISTSERV@nic.surfnet.nl
>For information and archives: http://isb.ri.ccf.org/biomch-l
>---------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
>
>------ End of Forwarded Message
---------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe send SIGNOFF BIOMCH-L to LISTSERV@nic.surfnet.nl
For information and archives: http://isb.ri.ccf.org/biomch-l
---------------------------------------------------------------