Temporal and Geographic Variation in Robusticity

• Published in: Skeletal Variation and Adaptation in Europeans pp. 91 - 132
• Main Authors: Holt, Brigitte, Whittey, Erin, Niskanen, Markku, Sládek, Vladimir, Berner, Margit, Ruff, Christopher B
• Format: Book Chapter
• Language: English
• Published: United States John Wiley & Sons, Incorporated 2018; John Wiley & Sons, Inc
• Subjects: Anthropology; BIOLOGY, LIFE SCIENCES; bone shape; early holocene human skeletal robusticity; geographic variation; human body size; late pleistocene human skeletal robusticity; long bone diaphyseal robusticity; Sociology: family & relationships; socio‐economic transitions; temporal variation
• ISBN: 9781118627969; 1118627962
• DOI: 10.1002/9781118628430.ch5

This chapter shows how European limb robusticity changed in response to the major socio‐economic transitions of the period spanning approximately 40,000 years to the present. Analyses of Late Pleistocene and early Holocene human skeletal remains show that long bone diaphyseal robusticity patterns track changes and variability in subsistence behavior. Overall temporal trends were assessed through linear regressions of upper and lower limb robusticity variables and calibrated dates. Bone robusticity was evaluated by comparing average bone rigidity or strength, standardized for body size differences, and bone shape through comparisons of relative strength in different planes. Although the impact of terrain should be reflected only in the lower limb, upper limb bone robusticity and shape variables were also analyzed, as a kind of 'control.' The analysis by terrain levels demonstrates the strong effect of topography on lower limb robusticity patterns.