In the present work, the study of variation in height in different periods (from the Upper Paleolithic to medieval period) in the territory of Europe was carried out. The aim was to identify patterns of height variability in Europe over time, both in general and in individual regions, especially in the early periods. The materials for this work consisted of data on heights or lengths of long bones, which were taken from various literary sources. The data were selected on bone remains from Europe dated to 38000 BC — 1200 AD. The main focus of the analysis was the Upper Paleolithic, Mesolithic and Neolithic materials. In cases when measurements of long bones were available, a calculation method developed on materials from Europe was used. When the measurements were absent, the figures for calculated body height were used, and most often the same methodology for reconstruction was used in these publications. It has been shown that in the territory of Europe the body length was smaller in the Neolithic as compared to the Upper Paleolithic (p < 0.05), no significant differences have been recorded in the mean values of height between the Neolithic materials and later populations in general for Europe. For the Neolithic, a statistically significant decrease in body length was detected in Central and South-Eastern Europe. As such, during the Upper Paleolithic, a continuous trans-epochal tendency of height reduction has been observed in Europe, which lost its global character in the Neolithic.

Keywords: biological anthropology, paleoanthropology, body length, human morphology, epochal changes.

 

Acknowledgements. Thanks to Professor Marina Anatolievna Negasheva, Doctor of Biology, Department of Anthropology, Faculty of Biology, Moscow State University, for the idea of this paper, as well as for the help provided in writing the article.

Funding. This work was supported by the Russian Science Foundation grant No. 23-18-00086.

 

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Accepted: 03.10.2024

Article is published: 15.03.2025