The transition of early humans from a hunter-gatherer life style to an agricultural one has led to the formation of a wide variety of health problems. It increased the spread of disease and created settled groups which led to increased conflict. In addition, the advent of agriculture has caused serious health problems which can still be seen in humans today. These include: dental problems, infection, abnormal growth and development, and decreased height.
Agriculture has generally been considered a good thing for humanity’s growth and development. “Pathology and other evidence from human remains reveal, however, that the shift from foraging to farming had generally negative consequences for lifestyle and health.” The changes to the workload and make-up of food that resulted from the creation of agriculture were negative for the health of humanity.
The masticatory functional hypothesis says that the form of the skull began to change because of reduced demands on the chewing muscles. This craniofacial change, which is basically a reduction in the size of the face, jaws, and masticatory chewing muscles, is a direct result of agriculture which caused people to eat softer foods. Eating softer meals seems like it would be a bonus for humanity’s health. Unfortunately it was not.
The eating of softer foods led to a reduced size in the face and mouth. The smaller mouth size caused an increase in malocclusion. This basically means dental alignment problems such as overbites and underbites. These problems have caused the creation of orthodontics. Since, the size of teeth is determined by genetics and the size of our jaws and muscles are determined by environmental factors, they have not stayed in proportion with one another. In other words the many problems we have with our teeth can be directly associated with the softer foods created by agriculture. Softer foods led to a smaller jaw size while the size of the teeth stayed the same. This directly caused the overcrowding such as the necessary removal of our wisdom teeth. Other problems that this has led to are: jaw misalignment, crooked teeth, and chewing problems.
Agriculture has also led to an increase in injuries which led to an increase of infections. This increase was caused by crowded settlements. “Anthropologists find, however, a general increase in periosteal reactions on the limb bones of skeletons from crowded settings in the Holocene.” A periosteal reaction is the inflammatory response of a bone’s covering most likely caused by infection of trauma.
Height also had a definite decrease after the advent of farming. This could have been a result of limited resources or perhaps an increase in stress. Being smaller, however, was not an indication of being healthier. In fact, evidence seems to point the opposite way. Many populations who had decreased height also had a higher tendency to have infectious disease, malnutrition, and anemia. Regardless of the cause, it is clear that people simply stopped growing as tall as they had been.
Agriculture has played an important role in the development of the human race. Unfortunately, it has had many negative effects on us along with the good such as poor health. For the advancement of human evolution, though, the advent of agriculture was a necessary evil and we would not be where we are today without it.
Sources:
Our Origins, by Clark Spencer Larsen
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