Skeletal Variation and Adaptation in Europeans

Upper Paleolithic to the Twentieth Century

Christopher B. Ruff

• Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9781118627969
• eBook ISBN: 9781118628027
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Biological Sciences
• Subtopic: Human Anatomy & Physiology
• Index: Biological Sciences

A comprehensive analysis of changes in body form and skeletal robusticity from the Terminal Pleistocene through the Holocene, leading to the modern European human phenotype.

Skeletal Variation and Adaptation in Europeans: Upper Paleolithic to the Twentieth Century brings together for the first time the results of an unprecedented large-scale investigation of European skeletal remains. The study was conducted over ten years by an international research team, and includes more than 2, 000 skeletons spanning most of the European continent over the past 30, 000 years, from the Early Upper Paleolithic to the 20th century. This time span includes environmental transitions from foraging to food production, small-scale to large-scale urban settlements, increasing social stratification and mechanization of labor, and climatic changes. Alterations in body form and behavior in response to these transitions are reconstructed through osteometric and biomechanical analyses.

Divided into four sections, the book includes an introduction to the project and comprehensive descriptions of the methods used; general continent-wide syntheses of major trends in body size, shape, and skeletal robusticity; detailed regional analyses; and a summary of results. It also offers a full data set on an external website.

• Brings together data from an unprecedented large-scale study of human skeletal and anatomical variations
• Includes appendix of specific information from each research site
• Synthesizes data from spatial, temporal, regional, and geographical perspectives

Skeletal Variation and Adaptation in Europeans will be a valuable resource for bioarchaeologists, palaeoanthropologists, forensic anthropologists, medical historians, and archaeologists at both the graduate and post-graduate level.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Table of Contents
• List of Contributors
• Preface
• 1 Introduction
• 2 Body Size and Shape Reconstruction
• 3 Quantifying Skeletal Robusticity
• 4 Temporal and Geographic Variation in Body Size and Shape of Europeans from the Late Pleistocene to Recent Times
• 5 Temporal and Geographic Variation in Robusticity
• 6 Sexual Dimorphism
• 7 Past Human Manipulative Behavior in the European Holocene as Assessed Through Upper Limb Asymmetry
• 8 Britain
• 9 France and Italy
• 10 Iberia
• 11 Central Europe
• 12 Scandinavia and Finland
• 13 The Balkans
• 14 Conclusions
• Appendix 1: Study Samples
• Appendix 2(a)
• Appendix 2(b)
• Appendix 3(a)
• Appendix 3(b)
• Appendix 4(a)
• Appendix 5
• Index
• End User License Agreement