Are people from colder climates larger?

massiveshibe
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Are people from colder climates larger? Jan 2, 2024 19:01:25 GMT -5 via mobile

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Post by massiveshibe on Jan 2, 2024 19:01:25 GMT -5

By larger I don’t mean fatter, but taller and more robust. Americans might be the “largest” people on Earth by weight, but the tallest and most broad shouldered people are Serbs and Bosniaks.

Europeans are way bigger than Africans and Asians, and this made me wonder if the cold actually selects for bigger bodies, and apparently that’s true according to Bergman’s rule.

But why are Serbs taller than Russians and Scandinavians on average?

Possibly because Serbs and Bosniaks have more DNA from ice age Europeans, while Russians and Scandinavians mainly descend from Steppe Pastoralists from Central Asia, which was much warmer than Europe during the ice age.

The naturally largest people on Earth that ever lived were the Gravettians, whose men stood at 1.84m on average, and they also had a very robust skeletal structure. Gravettians lived in Central Europe during the ice age, where the climate was a Tundra with Siberian-like winters.

Serbs and Bosniaks are the people with the most Gravettian DNA, even their Y DNA Haplogroup (I2) comes from the Gravettians. Scandinavians also have higher Gravettian DNA than most Europeans, but less than people from the Dinaric Alps. Gravettian/Ice Age European admixture correlates a lot with average height by country in Europe.

desiccatedi85
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Are people from colder climates larger? Jan 2, 2024 22:00:53 GMT -5 massiveshibe likes this

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Post by desiccatedi85 on Jan 2, 2024 22:00:53 GMT -5

No, I don't think there's much of a correlation. One's diet is the driving factor in height. The Quechua people in the cool highland Andes are very short, and the Dinka people in the hot plains of South Sudan are very tall. Manute Bol, the tallest NBA player ever, was Dinka and he stood 7'7".

The native peoples of the Americas eat shitty diets lacking in protein, while the Dinka are pastoralists with huge herds of cattle and plenty of protein. Just proves that depriving someone of animal proteins, forcing a "plant-based" diet while they are young, is harmful and should be considered a crime.

Last Edit: Jan 2, 2024 22:03:58 GMT -5 by desiccatedi85

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massiveshibe
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Are people from colder climates larger? Jan 2, 2024 23:15:37 GMT -5 via mobile

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Post by massiveshibe on Jan 2, 2024 23:15:37 GMT -5

Jan 2, 2024 22:00:53 GMT -5 desiccatedi85 said:

No, I don't think there's much of a correlation. One's diet is the driving factor in height. The Quechua people in the cool highland Andes are very short, and the Dinka people in the hot plains of South Sudan are very tall. Manute Bol, the tallest NBA player ever, was Dinka and he stood 7'7".

The native peoples of the Americas eat shitty diets lacking in protein, while the Dinka are pastoralists with huge herds of cattle and plenty of protein. Just proves that depriving someone of animal proteins, forcing a "plant-based" diet while they are young, is harmful and should be considered a crime.

Quechua people migrated to the Andes very recently… only 40% of their ancestry can be traced to Ancient Northern Eurasians, who lived in Siberia 15000 years ago. The rest of their ancestry comes from hunter gatherers who lived in South China at the same period. These people from South China contributed to nearly 100% of the ancestry of modern Chinese people, Koreans, Siberians and Mongolians, and around 60% of Native Americans. Dinka people are tall but they are also thin.

But I entirely agree about the diet part. Hunter gatherers have always been bigger than farmers. And it’s not only the height that deficient diets affect, but also the brain size. It’s estimated that agriculture caused a brain size reduction of 10% in humans.

massiveshibe
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Are people from colder climates larger? Jan 4, 2024 17:15:03 GMT -5 via mobile

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Post by massiveshibe on Jan 4, 2024 17:15:03 GMT -5

Animals from different climates don’t show a lot of variation in robustness. There is more variation between robustness within an environment than between them. Gorillas, for example, who live in a literal dense jungle in central Africa, are significantly more robust than humans, who originated in the chilly highlands of east Africa. Even the Gravettians and Aurignacians from the frigid steppe tundra of Europe were still very scrawny compared to gorillas, even though they were more robust than modern humans. Elephants, the most robust animals on Earth, live in hot savannas. So what’s the logic in it?

Neanderthals, Aurignacians and Gravettians were more robust than modern humans not because they lived in a cold climate, but because they evolved hunting large animals such as mammoths as musk oxes and fighting large predators like Sabertooth tigers and bears.

It’s not the body type, it’s the fur. Fur makes a lot more difference than body type when it comes to protection against the cold, and animal species from different climates vary way more in fur thickness than in body type.

Gorillas, elephants are very robust, but don’t have a lot of fur, while the small and lanky animals from cold climates, such as foxes, wolves and penguins, have a lot of fur.

I guess I answered my own question.