In the previous dispatch we argued that throughout the Holocene, stature was not correlated with latitude and mean temperatures, but BMI was. Consequently, the gradient of stature along latitude in modern data encodes information on global polarization in everyday living standards. We can thus interpret the cross-sectional variation in modern stature as reflecting the differential health transition in the mid-twentieth century. Conversely, the interpretation of cross-sectional variation in BMI is confounded by the fact that BMI is a linear function of pelvic bone width, and pelvic bone width encodes information on the very long run morphological adaptation of geographically-clustered populations to the macroclimate in accordance with Ruff's surface law. In what follows we introduce a new anthropometric measure that captures this morphological adaptation. And we refine our empirical strategy in light of our lack of precise knowledge of the antiquity of the fossils in the Goldman Osteometrics Dataset.
Ruff's Surface Law: Evidence from the Holocene
Ruff's Surface Law: Evidence from the…
Ruff's Surface Law: Evidence from the Holocene
In the previous dispatch we argued that throughout the Holocene, stature was not correlated with latitude and mean temperatures, but BMI was. Consequently, the gradient of stature along latitude in modern data encodes information on global polarization in everyday living standards. We can thus interpret the cross-sectional variation in modern stature as reflecting the differential health transition in the mid-twentieth century. Conversely, the interpretation of cross-sectional variation in BMI is confounded by the fact that BMI is a linear function of pelvic bone width, and pelvic bone width encodes information on the very long run morphological adaptation of geographically-clustered populations to the macroclimate in accordance with Ruff's surface law. In what follows we introduce a new anthropometric measure that captures this morphological adaptation. And we refine our empirical strategy in light of our lack of precise knowledge of the antiquity of the fossils in the Goldman Osteometrics Dataset.