School of Archaeology, University College Dublin, Belfield, Dublin 4, Ireland.
Earth Institute, University College Dublin, Belfield, Dublin 4, Ireland.
Sci Rep. 2016 Sep 13;6:33316. doi: 10.1038/srep33316.
The Neolithic transition brought about fundamental social, dietary and behavioural changes in human populations, which, in turn, impacted skeletal morphology. Crania are shaped through diverse genetic, ontogenetic and environmental factors, reflecting various elements of an individual's life. To determine the transition's effect on cranial morphology, we investigated its potential impact on the face and vault, two elements potentially responding to different influences. Three datasets from geographically distant regions (Ukraine, Iberia, and the Levant plus Anatolia) were analysed. Craniometric measurements were used to compare the morphology of pre-transition populations with that of agricultural populations. The Neolithic transition corresponds to a statistically significant increase only in cranial breadth of the Ukrainian vaults, while facial morphology shows no consistent transformations, despite expected changes related to the modification of masticatory behaviour. The broadening of Ukrainian vaults may be attributable to dietary and/or social changes. However, the lack of change observed in the other geographical regions and the lack of consistent change in facial morphology are surprising. Although the transition from foraging to farming is a process that took place repeatedly across the globe, different characteristics of transitions seem responsible for idiosyncratic responses in cranial morphology.
新石器时代的转变给人类群体带来了根本性的社会、饮食和行为变化，这些变化反过来又影响了骨骼形态。颅骨的形状是由多种遗传、个体发育和环境因素塑造的，反映了个体生活的各个方面。为了确定这一转变对颅骨形态的影响，我们研究了它对面部和颅顶的潜在影响，这两个部位可能受到不同因素的影响。我们分析了来自三个地理位置遥远的地区（乌克兰、伊比利亚半岛和黎凡特加上安纳托利亚）的三个数据集。我们使用颅测量学的方法来比较前新石器时代的人口和农业人口的形态。新石器时代的转变仅对应于乌克兰颅顶的颅宽的统计学上显著增加，而面部形态没有一致的变化，尽管预期与咀嚼行为的改变有关的变化。乌克兰颅顶的变宽可能归因于饮食和/或社会的变化。然而，在其他地理区域中观察到的变化缺失，以及面部形态中缺乏一致的变化，是令人惊讶的。虽然从狩猎采集到农业的转变是一个在全球范围内反复发生的过程，但不同的转变特征似乎导致了颅骨形态的特殊反应。
