An integrative skeletal and paleogenomic analysis of stature variation suggests relatively reduced health for early European farmers
Stephanie Marciniak, Christina M. Bergey, Ana María Silva, Agata Hałuszko, Mirosław Furmanek, Barbara Veselka, Petr Velemínský, Giuseppe Vercellotti, Joachim Wahl, Gunita Zariņa, Cristina Longhi, Jan Kolář, Rafael Garrido Peña, Raúl Flores Fernández, Ana Mercedes Herrero Corral, Angela Simalcsik, Werner A. Müller, Alison Sheridan, Žydrūnė Miliauskienė, Rimantas Jankauskas, Vyacheslav Moiseyev, Kitti Köhler, Ágnes Király, Beatriz Gamarra, Olivia Cheronet, Vajk Szeverényi, Viktória Kiss, Tamás Szeniczey, Krisztián Kiss, Zsuzsanna K. Zoffmann, Judit Koós, Magdolna Hellebrandt, Robert Maier, László Domboróczki, Cristian Virag, Mario Novak, David Reich, Tamás Hajdu, Noreen von Cramon‐Taubadel, Ron Pinhasi, George H. Perry
Abstract
Human culture, biology, and health were shaped dramatically by the onset of agriculture ∼12,000 y B.P. This shift is hypothesized to have resulted in increased individual fitness and population growth as evidenced by archaeological and population genomic data alongside a decline in physiological health as inferred from skeletal remains. Here, we consider osteological and ancient DNA data from the same prehistoric individuals to study human stature variation as a proxy for health across a transition to agriculture. Specifically, we compared “predicted” genetic contributions to height from paleogenomic data and “achieved” adult osteological height estimated from long bone measurements for 167 individuals across Europe spanning the Upper Paleolithic to Iron Age (∼38,000 to 2,400 B.P.). We found that individuals from the Neolithic were shorter than expected (given their individual polygenic height scores) by an average of −3.82 cm relative to individuals from the Upper Paleolithic and Mesolithic (P = 0.040) and −2.21 cm shorter relative to post-Neolithic individuals (P = 0.068), with osteological vs. expected stature steadily increasing across the Copper (+1.95 cm relative to the Neolithic), Bronze (+2.70 cm), and Iron (+3.27 cm) Ages. These results were attenuated when we additionally accounted for genome-wide genetic ancestry variation: for example, with Neolithic individuals −2.82 cm shorter than expected on average relative to pre-Neolithic individuals (P = 0.120). We also incorporated observations of paleopathological indicators of nonspecific stress that can persist from childhood to adulthood in skeletal remains into our model. Overall, our work highlights the potential of integrating disparate datasets to explore proxies of health in prehistory.