Bipedalism affected not only posture but dietary intake as well, and it allowed hominids to save energy while traveling farther than other quadruped or occasionally bipedal primates. Bipedalism was selected “to help the first hominins forage and obtain food more effectively in the face of major climate change that was occurring when the human and chimpanzee lineages diverged” (Lieberman 50). The first transition is habitual bipedalism, and with bipedalism came various human adaptations such as hip shape, S-shaped spine, etc. By observing the earliest hominid species onwards, Lieberman analyzes the five major biological transitions in hominids relative to when they first appeared. In order to demonstrate how modern humans became maladapted to their present day environments, which in turn increased their susceptibility to rare and previously unknown diseases when compared to their Paleolithic predecessors, one has to understand how humans evolved throughout time. The first two parts of the text cover topics presented in this blog, as Lieberman compares and contrasts life before and after the rise of the Agricultural and Industrial revolutions. How this information can be used to treat preventable illnesses in humans in the present and future. The positive and negative effects that the Agricultural and Industrial Revolutions had on human evolution, and 3. An extensive history on human evolution aimed to analyze human adaptations and natural selection, 2.
Lieberman's text is split into three parts: 1. Lieberman’s assertion relies heavily on the reconstruction and analysis of the Palaeolithic diet. Lieberman asserts that the promotion of these chronic diseases would be reduced if humans reverted to a Palaeolithic lifestyle, which includes engaging in frequent physical activities and adapting a hunter-gather diet. Modern humans are maladapted to a westernized diet of processed, synthetic foods. In order to better understand the origins of these mismatched diseases, it is important that Lieberman analyze the overall health and diet of modern humans and juxtapose it with that of our Palaeolithic ancestors. Examples of mismatched diseases include diabetes, cancer, osteoporosis, obesity, cardiovascular diseases, etc. I chose to post about this book because he focuses on the differences in hunter-gatherer and agriculturalist lifestyles, and he specifically analyzes how the transition to agriculture resulted in the promotion of various diseases that were not present in hunter-gatherer societies.ĭaniel Lieberman’s The Story of the Human Body: Evolution, Health, and Disease focuses on appearance of chronic “mismatched” diseases in modern humans, which is a result of cultural and biological evolution.
Daniel Lieberman, a Harvard palaeoanthropologist, wrote this book in order to analyze how the gradual transition to agriculture impacted the lifestyle of modern humans.