Re: Sex, Genes, Skin Color, Sex, and Europe Only?


"deowll" <deowll@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:oa5rf.31215$aS5.15821@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>
> "rmacfarl" <rmacfarl@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
> news:1135317006.593515.294400@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>>
>> deowll wrote:
>>> <johnwl4@xxxxxxx> wrote in message
>>> news:1135270506.245876.93400@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>>> > "So there would have been selection not
>>> > just for lighter skin, but for body shapes that were better adapted to
>>> > the last glacial maximum that arrived about 18 to 20 KYA in Europe...
>>> >
>>>
>>> I suspect that tightly stitched cloths may have greatly reduced the need
>>> for
>>> extreme anatomic cold adaptation and the Hsn type build is generally
>>> considered poor for running or a host of athletic activities.
>>
>> Fair call but Eskimos / Inuit have evolved this squat body shape, even
>> with clothing, so I would expect that early European moderns in similar
>> climates would also evolve the same way.
>
> Not to anything like the same degree.

Why not? Why would they be under any different selection pressures?

>>
>> As to HSN athletic ability, they were apparently able to survive for
>> 200KY on a 90%+ meat diet with hunting techniques akin to rodeo
>> bull-riders, so
>
> They survived but my point is this is a bad trade off if you don't have to
> make it. No other known population has ever had wacked off limbs like this
> and there is a reason. The high artic is most likely as harsh as the ice
> age but these people haven't gone to the same extreme.
>

I don't follow. What's the bad trade-off here? Neanderthals & Inuit had no
trouble hunting.

Point is that the evidence points to selective pressure on cold-climate
humans toward relatively shorter, more stocky body shapes that conserve heat
better. There are sound reasons why this would be evolutionarily favoured
(which isn't to say thart there aren't other sound reasons why this body
shape would be selected against, but you need to put up a hypothesis as to
what those countervailing pressures might be.) Cro-Magnons, unlike their
near-contemporaries in Europe, the Neanderthals, didn't exhibit this body
shape, which could be because they were recent migrants from a warmer
climatic zone...

Ross Macfarlane

>>
>>>
>>>
>>> In other words you have found one reason archaic genes may have been
>>> selected out of a hybrid population if one ever existed.
>>
>> I'm not sure what you're alluding to here. If anything, prior to the
>> end of the Ice Age the offspring of any putative hybrids would have
>> been selected to retain their Neanderthal features than their
>> ill-adapted warm-climate Cro-Magnon characteristics...
>>
> As long as low grade cloths are the best going the Hsn build is a net fuel
> saver that helps prevent hypothermia. With better cloths every time you go
> anywhere it gets bad milage. It is an energy waster. Ice age Hss seems to
> have been traveling large distances on foot, milage mattered. Another
> point is that longer arms help you throw further. Think spear thrower.
>
> Settled populations in Europe are shorter limbed in some cases but I'm not
> sure when selection for shorter limbs occured. It might or might not have
> been been after farming showed up and people moved around less.
>
> The Artic tribes I guess are under greater pressure but then many of them
> use boats and short but strong limbs may be less of an issue.
>
>
>
>> Ross Macfarlane
>>
>
>


.

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