Abstract
The Neolithic transition brought about fundamental social, dietary and behavioural changes in human populations, which, in turn, impacted skeletal morphology. Crania are shaped through diverse genetic, ontogenetic and environmental factors, reflecting various elements of an individual’s life. To determine the transition’s effect on cranial morphology, we investigated its potential impact on the face and vault, two elements potentially responding to different influences. Three datasets from geographically distant regions (Ukraine, Iberia, and the Levant plus Anatolia) were analysed. Craniometric measurements were used to compare the morphology of pre-transition populations with that of agricultural populations. The Neolithic transition corresponds to a statistically significant increase only in cranial breadth of the Ukrainian vaults, while facial morphology shows no consistent transformations, despite expected changes related to the modification of masticatory behaviour. The broadening of Ukrainian vaults may be attributable to dietary and/or social changes. However, the lack of change observed in the other geographical regions and the lack of consistent change in facial morphology are surprising. Although the transition from foraging to farming is a process that took place repeatedly across the globe, different characteristics of transitions seem responsible for idiosyncratic responses in cranial morphology.
Highlights
The Neolithic transition brought about fundamental social, dietary and behavioural changes in human populations, which, in turn, impacted skeletal morphology
The Neolithic transition marked the shift in human populations from a subsistence spectrum based solely on hunting, fishing and the gathering of natural resources, to strategies involving some dependence on domesticated plants and animals
It is widely accepted that overall cranial variation follows the expectations of a neutral evolutionary process[12,13,14,15], and as such, quantified cranial morphology can be employed in a similar manner to genetic data to elucidate questions of population structure[16,17,18]
Summary
The Neolithic transition brought about fundamental social, dietary and behavioural changes in human populations, which, in turn, impacted skeletal morphology. Humans adapt to their environmental conditions, and patterns of associated morphological variation have been identified in the Neolithic transition This comprises a general, organism-wide trend toward gracilisation, including reduction in stature[3], long bone composition[4], and cranial morphology. Specific elements of the skull indicate that non-neutral processes are at play, and adaptive changes can be observed as significant determinants of morphology in the masticatory and facial regions, in response to climate[19,20,21] and subsistence[7,8,22]. As such, investigating detailed morphological variation can allow a deeper understanding of the mechanisms involved, and it is expected that modules within a single cranium may reflect different processes
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