Abstract
The rules and structure of human culture impact health as much as genetics or environment. To study these relationships, we combine ancient DNA (n = 230), skeletal metrics (n = 391), palaeopathology (n = 606) and dietary stable isotopes (n = 873) to analyse stature variation in Early Neolithic Europeans from North Central, South Central, Balkan and Mediterranean regions. In North Central Europe, stable isotopes and linear enamel hypoplasias indicate high environmental stress across sexes, but female stature is low, despite polygenic scores identical to males, and suggests that cultural factors preferentially supported male recovery from stress. In Mediterranean populations, sexual dimorphism is reduced, indicating male vulnerability to stress and no strong cultural preference for males. Our analysis indicates that biological effects of sex-specific inequities can be linked to cultural influences at least as early as 7,000 yr ago, and culture, more than environment or genetics, drove height disparities in Early Neolithic Europe.
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Data availability
All non-genetic data and polygenic scores used in this analysis are provided in Supplementary Table 1. Original ancient DNA data files can be downloaded from the resources provided in the cited publications and from the Allen Ancient DNA Resource (AADR; https://reich.hms.harvard.edu/allen-ancient-dna-resource-aadr-downloadable-genotypes-present-day-and-ancient-dna-data). GWAS summary statistics can be downloaded from the Neale Lab (http://www.nealelab.is) and the sibling GWAS summary statistics from OpenGWAS (https://gwas.mrcieu.ac.uk/). Previously published osteological data can be found in the cited sources which include the LiVES database (https://doi.org/10.17171/2-12-2-1) and C. Ruff’s public dataset (https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/fae/CBR.html). Additional data from the PCAs, ADMIXTURE analysis and sex-specific polygenic scores are available at https://github.com/mathilab/Neolithic_height.git.
Code availability
R code used in this analysis is available at https://github.com/mathilab/Neolithic_height.git.
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Acknowledgements
This work was supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation (BCS2123627) to I.M. Metric skeletal data collection from Stuttgart-Mühlhausen and Schwetzingen was funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG; German Research Foundation) (RO 4148/1-1). The investigations of the skeletal collections from Derenburg, Karsdorf and Halberstadt were supported by DFG grants (Al 287/7-1 and 7-3 to K.W.A. and Me 3245/1-1 and 1-3 to H.M.). The content is the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official view of the NSF or other funders. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish or preparation of the manuscript.
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S.L.C. designed the study, collected data, performed analysis and wrote the paper; I.M. designed the study and wrote the paper; N.N. and K.W.A. contributed data and archaeological background; E.R. contributed data and performed analysis; M.F., J.W., H.M. and W.H. contributed data. All authors edited and approved the final version.
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Cox, S.L., Nicklisch, N., Francken, M. et al. Socio-cultural practices may have affected sex differences in stature in Early Neolithic Europe. Nat Hum Behav 8, 243–255 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-023-01756-w
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-023-01756-w