Posted on 11/20/2005 1:21:49 PM PST by blam
The Sunday Times November 20, 2005
Scientists show we’ve been losing face for 10,000 years
Jonathan Leake, Science Editor
THE human face is shrinking. Research into people’s appearance over the past 10,000 years has found that our ancestors’ heads and faces were up to 30% larger than now. Changes in diet are thought to be the main cause. The switch to softer, farmed foods means that jawbones, teeth, skulls and muscles do not need to be as strong as in the past.
The shrinkage has been blamed for a surge in dental problems caused by crooked or overlapping teeth.
“Over the past 10,000 years there has been a trend toward rounder skulls with smaller faces and jaws,” said Clark Spencer Larsen, professor of anthropology at Ohio State University.
“This began with the rise in farming and the increasing use of cooking, which began around 10,000 years ago.”
His conclusions are based on measurements from thousands of teeth, jawbones, skulls and other bones collected from prehistoric sites around the world.
Skulls from the site of a 9,000-year-old city in Turkey — thought to be the world’s oldest — show that the faces of city-dwellers had already begun to shrink compared with contemporaries who had not settled down.
Details will be reported at a forthcoming conference on the global history of health. Larsen will suggest that a typical human of 10,000 years ago would have had a much heavier build overall because of the hard work needed to gather food and stay alive.
He said: “Many men then would have had the shape of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s head while women might have looked more like Camilla [the Duchess of Cornwall]. By contrast, Tony Blair and George Bush are good examples of the more delicate modern form.”
Other studies are confirming Larsen’s findings. George Armelagos, professor of anthropology at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, has made extensive measurements on people from Nubia in modern Egypt and Sudan to see how their appearance has changed.
He found that the top of the head, or cranial vault, had grown higher and more rounded, a pattern also seen in human remains found at sites in other parts of the world.
Charles Loring Brace, professor of anthropology at the University of Michigan, said: “Human faces are shrinking by 1%-2% every 1,000 years.
“What’s more, we are growing less teeth. Ten thousand years ago everyone grew wisdom teeth but now only half of us get them, and other teeth like the lateral incisors have become much smaller. This is evolution in action.”
Softer food may not be the only cause. Some scientists blame sexual selection — the preference of prehistoric people for partners with smaller faces.
Dr Simon Hillson, of the Institute of Archaeology at University College London, has studied humans living from 26,000 years ago to about 8,000 years ago. He measured 15,000 prehistoric teeth, jaws and skulls collected by museums around the world and found the same pattern of shrinking faces.
He said: “The presumption is that people must have chosen mates with smaller, shorter faces — but quite why this would be is less clear.”
Some people will believe anything.
Populations shift over time as do traits. Trait drift is not the same thing as macroevolution. Though the media and many scientists and "educators" insist to clouding what evolution is and isn't so that every biological discovery is written in evo-speak. I'm not sure what an evolution denier is being that evolution is not a monolithic idea. I personally believe that change occurs in species groups, one would have to be a fool to not believe that. Do I believe that trait drift otherwise known as microevolution produces new phyla? No I don't. I also don't believe in the "standard" model abiogenises. Belief in abiogenises and in macroevolution is a matter of faith not far removed from a belief in a deity. Talk of “evolution deniers” is a political statement not a scientific one, and when a scientist resorts to politics to force the acceptance or exclude the ideas of others the scientist should reconsider the strength of their ideas. I think it would be far better if modern scientists would take some guidence from Kant and stop the posturing in a futil attempt to use science as a weapon against "God". I think Darwin would be ashamed of the behavior of some of his progeny in as much as their inability to address openly and honesty the deficits of his theory nor expand it to include directed evolution.
I guess you can play around with definitions--this is usually the escape hatch of evos. While you may decry the intelligence of those who doubt or merely challenge the "law" of evolution--we just might have a common sense understanding of what evolution means--new species from old. You ain't got no NEW yet.
When my 5 year old went to the dentist, he had 3 small cavities. The dentist wanted to fill then with real expensive white resin filling. It would have cost us about $600.
I asked him why we should spend so much money to fill his teeth with the most expensive filling money can buy when his baby teeth were going to fall out in a matter of months and the cavities were actually minor in nature.
He gave me an answer my 5 year thought was really stupid. "Because his teeth might rot down to his bone before they fall out"
I almost keyed his brand new Mercedes when I went out the door
I changed dentist
That's not bad. Science is not, or shouldn't be, about "accepting" anything.
Hah--you know, they sound like a worn-out preacher making an altar call!
re:I think Darwin would be ashamed of the behavior of some of his progeny)))
"Follow the money"--somebody's franchise is being threatened. It's all about passing the plate.
Invasion-of-the-clowns ping.
That's not what he's saying. Try again.
Yes, it does. Or at least it can and has.
(Aren't they teaching biology in school anymore?)
Do I get a grant?
Sure it does.
One explanation might be the principle of neoteny.
The man discovered what has been known to orthodondists for eons.
He should have read a little more before making the announcement.
Say what? Please don't try to make assertions about "Darwinism" when you aren't terribly familiar with it.
...and the difference would be...?
Back to biology class with you.
This is obviously Bush's fault.
....just variations within a species......
Ha, ha ha...... That is the definition of evolution.
LOL
Seems to carry a hint of Lamarkian Evolution.
Not at all, although I can see how it could be misread that way.
He's not saying that softer foods *caused* the genetic changes, he's saying that in an "environment" of softer foods, mankind no longer needed such long, strong jaws, and selection was then free to make the beneficial trade-off of larger craniums (with the resulting smaller faces/jaws).
No they don't.
and, thus, those surviving with good looks must be very strong in immunity. Eg. the peacock with the biggest feathers gets chosen coz that's the strongest who can fight the immune supression best.
Wrong, sorry.
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