World's tallest men stem from Mammoth hunters

[Still Waters]

Men from Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Netherlands, Croatia, and Montenegro are, on average, the tallest in the world, according to new research that helps to explain why such individuals often grow to six feet and more in height.
 
Their stature appears to be at least partly a genetic legacy of the Upper Paleolithic Gravettian culture, says the study, which is published in the journal Royal Society Open Science. The Upper Paleolithic broadly dates to between 50,000 and 10,000 years ago.
 
https://www.seeker.com/health/the-tallest-men-in-the-world-trace-back-to-prehistoric-mammoth-hunters

[+Hammerclaw]

Evoking the image of ice age ancestors, hunting megafauna extinct for ten thousand years, to explain physical characteristics of a small percentage of present day populations seems a bit of a stretch--don't you think?

Edited April 12, 2017 by Hammerclaw

[Herr Falukorv]

6 minutes ago, Hammerclaw said:

Evoking the image of ice age ancestors, hunting megafauna extinct for ten thousand years, to explain physical characteristics of a small percentage of present day populations seems a bit of a stretch--don't you think?

Japanese people would be giants as they hunt wales 

[+Noteverythingisaconspiracy]

55 minutes ago, Herr Falukorv said:

Japanese people would be giants as they hunt wales 

Why are they hunting the home of the Welsh  ?  

(Sorry I couldn't help it)

[Herr Falukorv]

45 minutes ago, Noteverythingisaconspiracy said:

Why are they hunting the home of the Welsh  ?  

(Sorry I couldn't help it)

eeehhhh tung suk

[Goodf3llow]

Thought Sudan had a higher avg height...maybe Sudanese tribes I'm thinking of..

[+Noteverythingisaconspiracy]

4 hours ago, Herr Falukorv said:

eeehhhh tung suk

I deserve that. 

[Calibeliever]

Not such a stretch I suppose. People living in Tibet and the Andes have larger lung capacities after just a few thousand years (or less). 

[paperdyer]

How do they know these people didn't hunt giraffes?

[pbarosso]

take that afro-centrists

[Troublehalf]

I thought Netherlands used to be one of the shortest people in Europe; but this suddenly changed in the last 100 years. If that's the case, was something unlocked?

[Calibeliever]

13 hours ago, pbarosso said:

take that afro-centrists

This doesn't invalidate the current early human migration theories. The time frames are off by as much as 100,000 years for modern humans (several hundred thousand if you include Neanderthals). Modern human migration was well established long before the last ice age began.

[+Noteverythingisaconspiracy]

15 hours ago, pbarosso said:

take that afro-centrists

Not really sure what that is supposed to mean ? 

[+Noteverythingisaconspiracy]

11 hours ago, Troublehalf said:

I thought Netherlands used to be one of the shortest people in Europe; but this suddenly changed in the last 100 years. If that's the case, was something unlocked?

Much of the Netherlands is below sea level, so maybe they became tall in order to keep their heads above the water ? 

[Gingitsune]

On 4/13/2017 at 9:38 PM, pbarosso said:

take that afro-centrists

I guess you mean "take that out of Africa theory"...?

[Frank Merton]

On 4/12/2017 at 9:17 PM, Still Waters said:

Men from Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Netherlands, Croatia, and Montenegro are, on average, the tallest in the world, according to new research that helps to explain why such individuals often grow to six feet and more in height.
 
Their stature appears to be at least partly a genetic legacy of the Upper Paleolithic Gravettian culture, says the study, which is published in the journal Royal Society Open Science. The Upper Paleolithic broadly dates to between 50,000 and 10,000 years ago.
 
https://www.seeker.com/health/the-tallest-men-in-the-world-trace-back-to-prehistoric-mammoth-hunters

I suppose that explains why today's young Vietnamese are so much taller than my generation.

I think human height may have some ancient genetic aspect, and it would make sense that descendent's of hunter-gatherer cultures would have some advantage in the males being taller, but I think calcium and similar dietary aspects of childhood is much more significant.

There are some damn tall Africans in West Africa too.

[Gingitsune]

On 4/12/2017 at 1:48 PM, Goodf3llow said:

Thought Sudan had a higher avg height...maybe Sudanese tribes I'm thinking of..

Although Sudan is hardly Zimbabwe, there were important gene flow between Middle East and East Africa, in Neolithic. The mammoth hunters' height genes could have reached Africa, along with Y-DNA haplogroup R1b-V88.

An independent mutation related to height in Sudan is also a possibility.

Any of these scenario could turn correct, and even both could be correct together. For example, there are at lease two lactase persistence alleles in Africa, the R1b-V88 one, which is the same as in Eurasia, and a local version (or even a few local versions) native from sub-Saharian Africa.

[Codenwarra]

On 4/14/2017 at 4:07 PM, Troublehalf said:

I thought Netherlands used to be one of the shortest people in Europe; but this suddenly changed in the last 100 years. If that's the case, was something unlocked?

Not in my limited experience.  Frank, born Eindhoven 1941 obviously lived through the NAZI occupation and the Dutch famine as an infant.  He was a bit shorter than average.  His younger brother  Simon, born well after 1945 was well over 6 feet tall.   With a few exceptions all the men of Netherlands ancestry I have known were unusually tall.  

The Scots travel writer James H. Curle noted in his 1920 book "This World of Ours" that both men and women in Montenegro seemed unusually tall.  

https://archive.org/details/thisworldofours00curl 

see pages 190 -191

Edited April 16, 2017 by Codenwarra
Insert source

[Phaeton80]

On 14-4-2017 at 8:07 AM, Troublehalf said:

I thought Netherlands used to be one of the shortest people in Europe; but this suddenly changed in the last 100 years. If that's the case, was something unlocked?

 

We eat a lot of cheese, potatoes and veggies.

No seriously; combination of environment (wealth, healthcare), diet, and natural selection I suppose.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/randal-olson/why-are-the-dutch-so-tall_b_5544085.html

Im 1.85 myself, so Im right in the Dutch median according to this article.

[Phaeton80]

Then again, maybe we just live in high concentrations of CO2, given our early and massive industrialization. CO2 isnt as bad as reported, dont believe the hype. Plants... and the Dutch.. thrive on it.