SUBSISTENCE STRATEGIES AND BONE RIGIDITY: A STUDY COMPARING THE RELATIVE FEMORAL RIGIDITY OF THE HASANLU AND PRE-HOLOCENE HOMO

Abstract

Until agriculture was invented roughly 12 000 years ago, humans survived by practicing a hunting/gathering subsistence strategy. This less efficient food-acquisition mechanism imposes a great amount of physical stress on the skeleton through biomechanical loading, which results in greater bone rigidity. This study examines the relative femoral rigidity (femoral rigidity: humeral rigidity) within the agricultural Hasanlu population, and compares their values to those of pre-agricultural Early African Homo erectus (EAHE), Homo neanderthalensis (Neanderthals), and Anatomically Modern Homo sapiens (AMHS). A greater relative femoral rigidity is indicative of high levels of lower limb loading, which could be caused by extensive amounts of walking or running. In this study, the Hasanlu exhibited no significant differences in relative femoral rigidity between sexes, age groups, distinct topographic locations, or time periods within their population. In contrast, the Hasanlu did exhibit significantly lower levels of relative femoral rigidity compared to some Neanderthals and some Anatomically Modern Homo sapiens specimens, but did not differ significantly from the two Early African Homo erectus skeletons. While a larger and more diverse sample size of pre-agricultural Homo is necessary for a more complete analysis, these results suggest that relative femoral rigidity is influenced to a greater extent by subsistence strategies (ie. hunting/gathering vs agriculture), than it is by age, sex, topographic location, or time period.