12,000 years ago, humans “changed shape” twice?

The first study has just been published in the journal Frontiers in Genetics revealed that humans living in Europe during the Neolithic period (about 10,000 BC to 4,500 BC) used to change dramatically in stature, skin color, disease risk, and intelligence.

According to Ancient Origins, A team of genetic researchers from Radboud University Medical Center in Nijmegen (Netherlands) and Helmholtz Center for Infectious Diseases (Germany) studied the genetic profiles of more than 800 ancient Europeans, compiled from DNA samples taken from skeletons excavated from various archaeological sites.

Compared with the DNA of modern Europeans, they discovered amazing changes in gene sets related to skin pigmentation, weight, mass index, metabolism, cholesterol, brain activity set…

Apparently, during the few thousand years of the Neolithic, it seems that changes in the technology of tool production and the way in which labor were performed had a tremendous impact on these ancient people.

They have become taller, lighter-skinned, smarter, but more susceptible to cardiovascular disease.

The most interesting of which is the change that makes more modern Europeans more susceptible to excess cholesterol and cardiovascular disease: that’s because the genes involved in this damage are beneficial to the brain. Therefore, people have made the “trade-off” to own a smarter mind.

In contrast, a study led by Associate Professor Stephanie Marciniak from the Department of Anthropology, State University of Pennsylvania (USA), has just been published in the journal PNAS, It was confirmed that at the 10,000 BC mark, humans were also… dwarfed by 3.8 cm.

According to Daimail, The change from hunter-gatherer to early agrarian society caused them to endure a period of poor nutrition and an increased burden of disease, resulting in physical changes.

The work is also based on DNA analysis, from 167 individuals found throughout Europe, who lived between 38,000 years ago and 2,400 years ago.

According to experts, it is likely that subtle social changes have had different effects on different groups of people with different ability to adapt to environmental changes. It is also possible that humans passed the difficult period of the beginning of the Neolithic to immediately reverse the transformations that initially appeared “backwards”.