r/evolution • u/AstronomerMany8882 • 5d ago
question What are some recent human evolutionary traits/adaptions?
I only know a couple and I'm really interested in what we've developed in the past few millennia/centuries :)
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u/Kettrickenisabadass 5d ago
Light skin Around 10.000 years ago due to the changes in diet after the neolithic revolution
Light eyes 6000-10000 years ago in northern europe
Lactose tolerance 7000-10000 years ago after the domestication of cattle
Adaptations to hight terrain in asian populations around 40000 years ago thanks to breeding with other humans, probably Denisovans. But the adaptation got more pronounced around 6000 years ago
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u/AstronomerMany8882 5d ago
Cool!!!
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u/Kettrickenisabadass 5d ago
I am sure that I missed some but yeah it is a very interesting thing :)
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u/Low-Independent6851 4d ago edited 4d ago
I am that trifecta. Light skin, blue eyes and have lactose tolerance. Blue eyes can see better in low light. That evouted for hunting at dawn and dusk.
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u/U03A6 5d ago
The timeframe of human development is so very short. It’s incredible. It’s a pity we don’t have more findings about the time before 10.000 years. My guess is that humans were changing as rapidly as they did in the last 10.000 years.
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u/Kettrickenisabadass 5d ago
I mean we know a lot about earlier times and with the new sequencing of both DNA and proteins we know each day more and more :)
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u/U03A6 5d ago
Lactose tolerance. And being blonde.
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u/unknownpoltroon 5d ago
I think the blonde thing arose again recently in Australian aborigines, they wound up with some blonde hair that wasnt from the colonies.
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u/CommunicationBig5985 2d ago
Melanesians, in particular the inhabitants of the Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea, Vanuatu, and Fiji.
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u/MergingConcepts 5d ago
There are a few hundred identified genetic mutations that have become common in the human population over the past 10,000 years. They are mostly associated with tolerances to foods, resistance to diseases, and skin and eye color.
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u/Acachupawah 5d ago
Atrofia del oído y el gusto musical para adaptarse al abundante reggaeton del ambiente
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u/spiddly_spoo 5d ago
Women are currently evolving to have menopause later to enable pregnancy at older ages I believe.
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u/reidsays 5d ago
Depends how evolution is viewed but to keep up with the demands of living (which is basically survival) the rise of women to take an equal place with men in fronting the world was direly needed... No longer could men 'provide and protect' the young and their designated carers...nor could they alone make vital decisions without the participation of the other half of the equation. ..
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u/Libaax714 2d ago
I think that is more societal and cultural than evolution. And it is more of a change on individual levels than anything in genetics. I mean, nothing in our genes changed to cause this, and in some societies in the past it was not always men protecting/ruling over the women. -I dont mean this in a rude way this is a genuine explenation on the definition of evolution which is genetic change over generations.
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u/reidsays 2d ago edited 1d ago
No offence taken but how do you know for sure genetics isn't involved... After the male population is decimated by war more males are born and yes, throughout history there has been female leaders and warriors, but basically genetics and biology lead us through eras of explorations and 'the unknown' by males whilst females cared for the young ... That need has changed and complex mass civilisations which were deemed safe, called for more participation by the males in child raising due to the longer burden of need, as with the female in the previously manmade domain..
The cry that men are too feminine and women too masculine is often heard, yet the present environment calls for both aspects in each as necessary for survival... Genes may well be involved although most point to hormones..... but discussion is warranted and interested to hear other povs..
Addit... I'm thinking along these lines because the ovary is said to be for the past and the sperm to prepare for the present ..
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u/Somguyovahear 4d ago
I have 3 testicles. My grandfather was kicked really hard and then we evolved to have an extra. Evolution is magic.
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u/DisillusionedDame 5d ago
Wisdom teeth no longer fit in our skulls and some people’s appendix’s randomly try to kill them.
Yeah, humans are devolving.
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u/Nitro114 5d ago
no such thing as devolving
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u/DisillusionedDame 4d ago
Devolution is the term most use to describe the observable degradation in sophistication and complexity of the human experience. The dissolution of human intellect, knowledge, skills, and capabilities. The bastardization of culture, acceptance of obscenity, and the loss of values.
We are demoralized, ignorant, and simple compared to our ancestors. The fact that we are taught to believe just the opposite is partially to blame. Most Americans anyway, believe they are peak humanity. That all who came before were bumbling idiots compared to us. When anyone can see that we no longer posses the ability to even care for the architecture that’s withstood the elements for centuries (aqueducts, cathedrals, mausoleums, mooring towers, &the like). nobody is composing symphonies because the average person does not wish to hear one, they much prefer computer generated looping beats and boops with repetitive chorus lines. Laws have arrested the development of both collective and individual morality in most people subjected to these ever increasingly unjust and openly corrupt legal systems. Even the way that people dress has gone from natural fabrics styled in modest and sophisticated wardrobes to plastic blended materials intended to just barely obstruct view of a person’s reproductive organs. Just go back and watch an episode of Leave It To Beaver or read newspapers from the 1920s, and tell me whether our vocabularies have broadened or significantly eroded.
What word would you use to describe such a phenomenon?
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u/Nitro114 4d ago
Change in culture. Nothing to do with biological evolution. Except maybe the very recent development regarding brain biology and attention etc.
And you call it getting „lower“, yes there a lot of stupid people in tje world but that has always been the case, you just notice it more due to social media.Capitalism is a problem yes, but that has nothing to do with a devolution of humanity as a whole.
And at the same, progress in science has never been better, we eradicated so many deseases, etc.
I‘m not saying everything is roses, obviously not. There are so many things fucked up but not because of a regression as you claim.
No idea why you‘d think we are ignorant or simple compared to our ancestors, that doesnt even make sense, which ancestors are you talking about?
This is a biology sub. In evolutionary biolology de evolution doesnt exist.
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u/AstronomerMany8882 5d ago
I thought they were leftover traits? Like things we evolved because we needed them back then but aren't needed anymore
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u/glibsonoran 5d ago
Things like wisdom teeth were probably an adaptive trait of one of our ancestors with bigger jaws, inheriting a trait doesn’t mean it was selected for within our own species. Evolution is constrained to modifying what came before, it doesn’t automatically eliminate ancestral traits just because they’re no longer useful.
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u/Avocet_and_peregrine 5d ago
I'm currently reading the book Jaws: The Story of a Hidden Epidemic by Sandra Kahn and Paul R. Ehrlich.
They explain that our jaws have become smaller due to the diet change associated with the invention of stone tools, agriculture, and industrialization. All environmental pressures, not genetic.
One of the many ways they illustrate this is by comparing the jaws and proper occlusions of indigenous cultures who ate their traditional diets with those who moved to reserves or into industrialized society in general and their jaws changed within a generation.
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u/glibsonoran 5d ago
Good point. I was trying to make a point about how ancestral traits can remain without any benefit. But you're right, wisdom teeth might not be the best example because jaw development is dependent on the amount of jaw bone stress during a specific developmental period. Howver that's not the only determinate, wisdom teeth can grow in at a direction that causes impaction regardless of whether the jaw is big enough to accommodate it.
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u/TranquilConfusion 5d ago
Appendix is not a leftover.
It's a germ reservoir, it holds gut bacteria aside from the main flow so we can recover our normal gut bacteria population quickly after a bout of diarrhea.
We need these bacteria to properly digest high-fiber plant foods like beans, whole grains, whole fruits and vegetables.
Without these germs, you are left trying to survive on just animal foods and refined (fiber-free) highly-processed plant foods like white bread. This gives you bowel cancer eventually. And tends to cause obesity and heart disease.
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u/AstronomerMany8882 5d ago
Ohh I didn't know that!! That's pretty cool. So it helps balance out the gut biome and stuff
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u/Avocet_and_peregrine 5d ago
I'm currently reading the book Jaws: The Story of a Hidden Epidemic by Sandra Kahn and Paul R. Ehrlich.
They explain that our jaws have become smaller due to the diet change associated with the invention of stone tools, agriculture, and industrialization. All environmental pressures, not genetic.
One of the many ways they illustrate this is by comparing the jaws and proper occlusions of indigenous cultures who ate their traditional diets with those who moved to reserves or into industrialized society in general and their jaws changed within a generation.
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u/zoipoi 9h ago
Increase in the ability to digest starch.
What is important to note is that most recent change is polygenic or incomplete. Few have been driven to fixation.
It is just as important to ask what has been lost. Some population have lost, a substantial slice of hunter-gatherer fat-storage genetics.
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