Evolutionary demography of agricultural expansion in preindustrial northern Finland.

ABSTRACT: A shift from nomadic foraging to sedentary agriculture was a major turning point in human evolutionary history, increasing our population size and eventually leading to the development of modern societies. We however lack understanding of the changes in life histories that contributed to the increased population growth rate of agriculturalists, because comparable individual-based reproductive records of sympatric populations of agriculturalists and foragers are rarely found. Here, we compared key life-history traits and population growth rate using comprehensive data from the seventieth to nineteenth century Northern Finland: indigenous Sami were nomadic hunter-fishers and reindeer herders, whereas sympatric agricultural Finns relied predominantly on animal husbandry. We found that agricul

SUBMITTER: Helle S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4211450 | biostudies-literature | 2014 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature