Article

Horticultural activity predicts later localized limb status in a contemporary pre-industrial population

Jonathan Stieglitz, Benjamin C. Trumble, Hillard Kaplan, and Michael Gurven

Abstract

Modern humans may have gracile skeletons due to low physical activity levels and mechanical loading. Tests using pre-historic skeletons are limited by the inability to assess behavior directly, while modern industrialized societies possess few socio-ecological features typical of human evolutionary history. Among Tsimane forager-horticulturalists, we test whether greater activity levels and, thus, increased loading earlier in life are associated with greater later-life bone status and diminished age-related bone loss.

Published in

American Journal of Physical Anthropology, vol. 163, n. 3, July 2017, pp. 425–436