2023-12-11 16:00:33
Researchers in the journal “Nature Human Behavior” blame cultural inequality for this.
The first farmers in Europe in the early Neolithic period had a more strenuous life than their husbands, reports a team of researchers with Austrian participation. The size difference between men and women was much more pronounced then than it is today. According to skeletal analyses, there are no hereditary, illness or diet-related causes for this. That’s why the researchers in the journal “Nature Human Behavior” blame cultural inequality for this.
US geneticist Samantha Cox (University of Pennsylvania) and colleagues inspected the remains of 1,535 Neolithic farmers who lived in Europe between 8,000 and 6,000 years ago. The researchers read out the genomes of these people. They gained insight into their diet by analyzing chemical elements built into the bones. Evidence of disease was found on the teeth and bones. They also measured the thigh bones. You can determine your body size from their length.
According to the analysis, the size differences between men and women were much more pronounced during this time than they are today, according to the team, which also includes Nicole Nicklisch and Kurt Alt from the Center for Natural and Cultural Human History at the Danube Private University in Krems (Lower Austria): In modern societies around the world, the height ratio of the two sexes is between 1.06 and 1.08. This means that, statistically speaking, a woman who is 1.70 meters tall is compared to a man who is between 1.80 and 1.84 meters tall.
In the Neolithic period, the difference in size in Europe north of Austria was “extraordinarily” pronounced. According to the researchers, the ratio was 1.14. In southern Central Europe – which includes Austria – it was 1.09 and in the Balkans it was 1.11. According to scientific literature, only some societies in the modern world, such as the United Arab Emirates and India, have values as high as 1.10 today, and these are known for their “cultural preference for male children.”
The researchers explain that there are no identifiable genetic, nutritional or disease-related causes for the Neolithic size discrepancy. The early farmers back then had strenuous lives and were smaller and sicker than the hunters and gatherers in the Paleolithic. Scientists believe that this stress was probably cushioned more strongly by the male gender being more favored than the female gender, which was reflected in body size. Because livestock and grain thrived the further north one lived, the differences were clearer in northern Central Europe than in southern Europe.
Only in the Mediterranean region was there apparently no preference for men. This is evidenced by a quasi “super-modern” gender height ratio of 1.05. The men there were also among the smallest in Neolithic Europe.
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