Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-rdxmf Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-26T11:36:45.721Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

LONG-RUN TRENDS IN HUMAN BODY MASS

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 April 2007

NILS-PETTER LAGERLÖF
NILS-PETTER LAGERLÖF
Affiliation:
York University
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Over the past two million years human body mass first increased and later declined, peaking about 50,000 years ago. This paper sets up a model of natural selection among body types to explain this pattern. Population, technology, and average body mass evolve endogenously and interdependently in such a way that a takeoff in technological progress generates rising population density and resource depletion. This in turn makes large bodies less useful in food procurement, while keeping their metabolism requirements high. The result is a shift in reproductive advantage from big to small bodies and an endogenous reversal of the time trend in body mass.

Keywords

Long-Run GrowthNatural SelectionBodyPopulation
Type
ARTICLES
Information
Macroeconomic Dynamics , Volume 11 , Issue 3 , June 2007 , pp. 367 - 387
Copyright
© 2007 Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Anderson R.P. and C.O. Handley Jr., 2002 Dwarfism in insular sloths: Biogeography, selection, and evolutionary rate. Evolution 56, 1045– 1058.Google Scholar
Baker M.J. 2003 An equilibrium conflict model of land tenure in hunter-gatherer societies. Journal of Political Economy 111, 124– 173.Google Scholar
Borghans J.A.M, L. Borghans, and B. ter Wel (2005) Is There a Link Between Economic Outcomes and Genetic Evolution? Cross-Country Evidence from the Major Histocompatibility Complex. Mimeo, Maastricht University.
Brander J. and S. Taylor 1998 The simple economics of Easter Island: A Ricardo–Malthus model of renewable resources. American Economic Review 88, 119– 138.Google Scholar
Brown P., T. Sutikna, M.J. Soejono, Jatmiko E. Wayhu Saptomo, and Rokus Awe Due 2004 A new small-bodied hominin from late Pleistocene of Flores, Indonesia. Nature 431, 1055– 1061.Google Scholar
Cohen M.N. 1977 The Food Crisis in Prehistory—Overpopulation and the Origins of Agriculture. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Diamond J. 1992 The Third Chimpanzee: The Evolution and Future of the Human Animal. New York: Harper Perennial.
Diamond J. 2003 The double puzzle of diabetes. Nature 423, 599– 602.Google Scholar
Diamond J. 2004 The astonishing micropygmies. Science 306, 2047– 2048.Google Scholar
Faria J.R. 2000 What happened to the Neanderthals? The survival trap. Kyklos 53, 161– 172.Google Scholar
Fogel W.R. and D.L. Costa 1997 A theory of technophysio evolution, with some implications for forecasting population, health, care costs, and pension costs. Demography 34, 49– 66.Google Scholar
Foster J.B. 1964 Evolution of mammals on islands. Nature 202, 234– 235.Google Scholar
Frayer D.W. 1981 Body mass, weapon use, and natural selection in the European Upper Paleolithic and Mesolithic. American Anthropologist 83, 57– 73.Google Scholar
Galor O. and S. Michalopoulos (2006) Darwinian Evolution of Entrepreneurial Spirit and the Process of Development. Mimeo, Brown University.
Galor O. and O. Moav 2001 Evolution and growth. European Economic Review 45, 718– 729.Google Scholar
Galor O. and O. Moav 2002 Natural selection and the origin of economic growth. Quarterly Journal of Economics 117, 1133– 1191.Google Scholar
Galor O. and O. Moav (2005) Natural Selection and the Evolution of Life Expectancy. Minerva Center for Economic Growth, Paper No. 02-05.
Galor O. and D.N. Weil 2000 Population, technology, and growth: from the Malthusian regime to the demographic transition and beyond. American Economic Review 90, 806– 828.Google Scholar
Horan R.D., E. Bulte, and J.F. Shogren 2005 How trade saved humanity from biological exclusion: an economic theory of Neanderthal extinction. Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization 58, 1– 29.Google Scholar
Jones C. (2005) Growth and ideas. In P. Aghion, and S. Durlauf (eds.), Handbook of Economic Growth. Amsterdam: Elsevier.
Jurmain R., H. Nelson, L. Kilgore, and W. Trevathan 2000 Introduction to Physical Anthropology. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.
Kappelman J. 1996 The evolution of body mass and relative brain size in fossil hominids. Journal of Human Evolution 30, 243– 276.Google Scholar
Kappelman J. 1997 They might be giants. Nature 387, 126– 127.Google Scholar
Kremer M. 1993 Population growth and technological change: one million B.C. to 1990. Quarterly Journal of Economics 108, 681– 716.Google Scholar
Lagerlöf N-P. 2003 From Malthus to modern growth: can epidemics explain the three regimes? International Economic Review 44, 755– 777.Google Scholar
Lagerlöf N-P. 2006 The Galor–Weil model revisited: a quantitative exercise. Review of Economic Dynamics 9, 116– 142.Google Scholar
Lomolino M.V. 1985 Body size of mammals on islands: the island rule reexamined. The American Naturalist 125, 310– 316.Google Scholar
Marceau N. and G. Myers (2006) On the Early Holocene: Foraging to early agriculture. Economic Journal, 116, 751– 772.Google Scholar
McHenry M.H. 1992 Body size and proportions in early hominids. American Journal of Physical Anthropology 87, 407– 431.Google Scholar
Mirazón Lahr M. and R. Foley 2004 Human evolution writ small. Nature 431, 1043– 1044.Google Scholar
Nolan P. and G. Lenski 1999 Human Societies—An Introduction to Macrosociology. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Payne P. (1992) Assessing undernutrition: the need for a reconceptualization. In S.R. Osmani (ed.). Nutrition and Poverty. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Ridley M. 2003 Nature via Nurture. London: Fourth Estate, Harper Collins.
Robson A.J. 2001 The biological basis of economic behavior. Journal of Economic Literature 39, 11– 33.Google Scholar
Robson A.J. 2002 Evolution and human nature. Journal of Economic Perspectives 16, 89– 106.Google Scholar
Robson A.J. 2003 The evolution of rationality and the red queen. Journal of Economic Theory 111, 1– 22.Google Scholar
Robson A.J. and H.S. Kaplan 2003 The evolution of human life expectancy and intelligence in hunter-gatherer societies. American Economic Review 93, 150– 169.Google Scholar
Roth L. (1992) Inferences from allometry and fossils: dwarfing of elephants on islands. In D. Futuyama, and J. Antonovics (eds.), Oxford Surveys in Evolutionary Biology, Volume 8. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Ruff C. 1994 Morphological adaptation to climate in modern and fossil hominids. Yearbook of Physical Anthropology 37, 65– 107.Google Scholar
Ruff C. 2002 Variation in human body mass and shape. Annual Review of Anthropology 31, 211– 232.Google Scholar
Ruff C., E. Trinkaus, and W. Holliday 1997 Body mass and encephalization in Pleistocene Homo. Nature 387, 173– 176.Google Scholar
Smith V. 1975 The primitive hunter culture, Pleistocene extinction, and the rise of agriculture. Journal of Political Economy 83, 727– 755.Google Scholar
Smith V. 1992 Economic principles in the emergence of humankind. Economic Inquiry 30, 1– 13.Google Scholar
Valkenburgh B. Van, X. Wang, and J. Damuth 2004 Cope's rule, hypercarnivory, and extinction on North American canids. Science 306, 101– 104.Google Scholar
Weisdorf J.L. 2005 From foraging to farming: explaining the neolithic revolution. Journal of Economic Surveys 19, 561– 586.Google Scholar