From Athletes to Couch Potatoes: Humans Through 6,000 Years of Farming

“Work published by biological anthropologist Dr Colin Shaw (also Cambridge University) has enabled Macintosh to interpret this male decline in relation to Cambridge University students. Using Shaw’s study of bone rigidity among modern Cambridge University undergraduates, Macintosh suggests that male mobility among earliest farmers (around 7,300 years ago) was, on average, at a level near that of today’s student cross-country runners. Within just over 3,000 years, average mobility had dropped to the level of those students rated as sedentary, after which the decline slowed.”

* weird sample group, amirite?

From Athletes to Couch Potatoes: Humans Through 6,000 Years of Farming

Read more "From Athletes to Couch Potatoes: Humans Through 6,000 Years of Farming"

Götherström thinks there are a few possible explanations. One is that after humans left Africa, some flourished by becoming farmers and exploiting the fertile lands they found in the Near East. Others ventured further north, where they continued to rely on the wild animals they killed and the plants and berries they collected from the landscape. These groups were split into small populations that survived in isolation between the ice sheets.

The Swedish data shows some mixing between the two groups, suggesting that as the farmers later swept north they interbred with the hunter-gatherers they encountered and assimilated them into their cultures. The exchange seems to have been unidirectional: there is very little if any evidence that farmers were assimilated into the hunter-gatherers.

Read more

jcoleknowsbest:

jhameia:

Ancient West African Megacities

Recent Archeological findings have discovered ancient west African Mega cities dating back to 500 BC possibly rivaling other early urban civilizations such as Mesopotamia. Long before the coming of Islam and the days of the Songhay, Mali and Ghana Empires.

The Archeologists state they have not seen any signs of war & waring, therefore it seems like they lived in relative peace. Some of the cities were twice the size of Timbuktu (Medieval Timbuktu was twice the size of London).

What is most interesting about this information that it emphasizes how little we know of ancient Africa’s past.

Why does this have so few notes.

cause it’s not egypt…. das all folks curr about!

Read more