Jay T Stock

The University of Western Ontario | UWO · Department of Anthropology

Over recent millennia, human populations have regularly reconstructed their subsistence niches, changing both how they obtain food and the conditions in which they live. For example, over the last 12,000 years the vast majority of human populations shifted from foraging to practicing different forms of agriculture. The shift to farming is widely un...

The use of sport as a conceptual framework offers unprecedented opportunities to improve our understanding of what the body does, shedding new light on our evolutionary trajectory, our capacity for adaptation, and the underlying biological mechanisms. This approach has gained traction over recent years. To date, sport has facilitated exploration no...

The intensification of agriculture is often associated with declining mobility and bone strength through time, although women often exhibit less pronounced trends than men. For example, previous studies of prehistoric Central European agriculturalists (~5300 calibrated years BC to 850 AD) demonstrated a significant reduction in tibial rigidity amon...

There is evidence for early Pleistocene Homo in northern Europe, a novel hominin habitat. Adaptations enabling this colonisation are intriguing given suggestions that Homo exhibits physiological and behavioural malleability associated with a 'colonising niche'. Differences in body size/shape between conspecifics from different climates are well-kno...

Understanding the timing and character of the expansion of Homo sapiens out of Africa is critical for inferring the colonization and admixture processes that underpin global population history. It has been argued that dispersal out of Africa had an early phase, particularly ~130–90 thousand years ago (ka), that reached only the East Mediterranean L...

Evidence for a reduction in stature between Mesolithic foragers and Neolithic farmers has been interpreted as reflective of declines in health, however, our current understanding of this trend fails to account for the complexity of cultural and dietary transitions or the possible causes of phenotypic change. The agricultural transition was extended...

The ERC-funded FRAGSUS Project (Fragility and sustainability in small island environments: adaptation, culture change and collapse in prehistory, 2013–18) led by Caroline Malone has focused on the unique Temple Culture of Neolithic Malta and its antecedents. This third volume builds on the achievements of Mortuary customs in prehistoric Malta, publ...

The ERC-funded FRAGSUS Project (Fragility and sustainability in small island environments: adaptation, culture change and collapse in prehistory, 2013–18) led by Caroline Malone has focused on the unique Temple Culture of Neolithic Malta and its antecedents. This third volume builds on the achievements of Mortuary customs in prehistoric Malta, publ...

The ERC-funded FRAGSUS Project (Fragility and sustainability in small island environments: adaptation, culture change and collapse in prehistory, 2013–18) led by Caroline Malone has focused on the unique Temple Culture of Neolithic Malta and its antecedents. This third volume builds on the achievements of Mortuary customs in prehistoric Malta, publ...

The ERC-funded FRAGSUS Project (Fragility and sustainability in small island environments: adaptation, culture change and collapse in prehistory, 2013–18) led by Caroline Malone has focused on the unique Temple Culture of Neolithic Malta and its antecedents. This third volume builds on the achievements of Mortuary customs in prehistoric Malta, publ...

The ERC-funded FRAGSUS Project (Fragility and sustainability in small island environments: adaptation, culture change and collapse in prehistory, 2013–18) led by Caroline Malone has focused on the unique Temple Culture of Neolithic Malta and its antecedents. This third volume builds on the achievements of Mortuary customs in prehistoric Malta, publ...

The ERC-funded FRAGSUS Project (Fragility and sustainability in small island environments: adaptation, culture change and collapse in prehistory, 2013–18) led by Caroline Malone has focused on the unique Temple Culture of Neolithic Malta and its antecedents. This third volume builds on the achievements of Mortuary customs in prehistoric Malta, publ...

The ERC-funded FRAGSUS Project (Fragility and sustainability in small island environments: adaptation, culture change and collapse in prehistory, 2013–18) led by Caroline Malone has focused on the unique Temple Culture of Neolithic Malta and its antecedents. This third volume builds on the achievements of Mortuary customs in prehistoric Malta, publ...

Trabecular bone-the spongy bone inside marrow cavities-adapts to its mechanical environment during growth and development. Trabecular structure can therefore be interpreted as a functional record of locomotor behavior in extinct vertebrates. In this paper, we expand upon traditional links between form and function by situating ontogenetic trajector...

Over the last three decades, Sri Lanka has risen to international prominence as a key area for exploring past forager adaptations. Much of this discussion has focused on the lowland rainforests of the Wet Zone of the island, and their preservation of the earliest fossils of our species, bone tools, and microlithic technologies in the region ca. 45,...

An appreciation of Siran Deraniyagala

Few human burials from Sri Lankan archaeological contexts have been described. Here we report on the analysis of two early Holocene skeletons, FH8, a young adult female skeleton excavated from Fa Hien-lena and dated to 10,640-10,139 cal BP, and BK1, a middle adult male skeleton excavated at Kuragala and dated to 7,170-6,950 cal BP. The skeletons ar...

Objectives: The aim of the current study was to understand the transition in lower limb loading and terrestrial mobility during the urbanization revolution in medieval Denmark. This was accomplished by comparing the cross-sectional geometric properties of the femora from two populations, the rural cemetery of Tirup and the urban Black Friars cemete...

Based on the principles of bone functional adaptation, bone structure has been interpreted as reflective, at least in part, of the mechanical loading environment experienced by an individual during their lifetime. However, the extent to which reduced skeletal robusticity in modern humans over the last 10,000 years is the result of reduced activity...

Archaeological consideration of maritime connectivity has ranged from a biogeographical perspective that considers the sea as a barrier to a view of seaways as ancient highways that facilitate exchange. Our results illustrate the former. We report three Late Neolithic human genomes from the Mediterranean island of Malta that are markedly enriched f...

Evolutionary medicine portrays metabolic diseases as a problem of contemporary obesogenic lifestyles in a globalised world within the context of mismatch to past environments. Over a single generation, there has been a dramatic rise in the global rate of such diseases including type 2 diabetes (T2DM) and obesity affecting high-, medium- and low-inc...

Objectives: Imaging methods to measure the human pelvis in vivo provide opportunities to better understand pelvic variation and adaptation. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) provides high-resolution images, but is more expensive than dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA). We sought to compare pelvic breadth measurements collected from the same ind...

Background: • All skeletal elements are composed of both cortical and trabecular bone. Most research on skeletal variation in humans and other primates has focused on analyzing only trabecular or cortical bone structure. However, these two levels of bone structural organization are known to have distinct material properties and likely respond diffe...

Bone structure dynamically adapts to its mechanical environment throughout ontogeny by altering the structure of trabecular bone, the three‐dimensional mesh‐like structure found underneath joint surfaces. Trabecular structure, then, can provide a record of variation in loading directions and magnitude; and in ontogenetic samples, it can potentially...

Objective A suite of adaptations facilitating endurance running (ER) evolved within the hominin lineage. This may have improved our ability to reach scavenging sites before competitors, or to hunt prey over long distances. Running economy (RE) is a key determinant of endurance running performance, and depends largely on the magnitude of force requi...

Objectives Intraspecific shape variation in the recent Homo sapiens bony labyrinth has been assessed for association with sexual dimorphism, body size, and genetic differences, but has not been fully assessed for association with extrinsic factors, such as subsistence strategy and climate. While the skull overall is known to vary with these variabl...

This project aims to test whether geometric morphometric (GM) and trabecular analyses may be useful tools in identifying talar characteristics related to hypochondroplasia. We quantified the external and internal talar morphology of an hypochondroplasic dwarf (T17) from Modena (northern Italy) dated to the 6th century AD. External talar morphology...

Neanderthal foot bone proportions and morphology are mostly indistinguishable from those of Homo sapiens, with the exception of several distinct Neanderthal features in the talus. The biomechanical implications of these distinct talar features remain contentious, fueling debate around the adaptive meaning of this distinctiveness. With the aim of cl...

Objectives Ancient DNA provides an opportunity to separate the genetic and environmental bases of complex traits by allowing direct estimation of genetic values in ancient individuals. Here, we test whether genetic scores for height in ancient individuals are predictive of their actual height, as inferred from skeletal remains. We estimate the cont...

Early life environment is known to influence phenotypic outcomes through developmental plasticity (Longman et al., 2020). The life history traits birth weight (BW) and age at menarche (AaM) are environmentally responsive and can be used as indicators of energetic conditions in early life. Previous research has linked variations in BW and AaM in wom...

We aim to broaden the analysis of bone structure by suggesting a new way to incorporate the interactions between behavior, neuromuscular development, and life-history. We examine the associations between these variables and age-related variation in trabecular structure in the calcaneus of Japanese macaques ( Macaca fuscata ). If skeletal markers li...

Worldwide variation in human stature and limb proportions is widely accepted to reflect thermal adaptation, but the contribution of population history to this variation is unknown. Furthermore, stature and relative lower limb length (LLL) show substantial plastic responses to environmental stressors, e.g., nutrition, pathogen load, which covary wit...

Objectives Palaeopathological analysis is key for characterising population health at the individual level and across large assemblages but is rarely exploited to unite the remains of disarticulated individuals. This study explores the potential for individual identification through differential diagnosis of periosteal lesions in a commingled depos...

The emergence of the capacity to digest milk in some populations represents a landmark in human evolution, linking genetic change with a component of niche construction, namely dairying. Alleles promoting continued activity of the enzyme lactase through the life-course (lactase persistence) evolved in several global regions within the last 7,000 ye...

Increasing body and brain size constitutes a key macro-evolutionary pattern in the hominin lineage, yet the mechanisms behind these changes remain debated. Hypothesized drivers include environmental, demographic, social, dietary, and technological factors. Here we test the influence of environmental factors on the evolution of body and brain size i...

Significance The microbiome plays key roles in human health, but little is known about its evolution. We investigate the evolutionary history of the African hominid oral microbiome by analyzing dental biofilms of humans and Neanderthals spanning the past 100,000 years and comparing them with those of chimpanzees, gorillas, and howler monkeys. We id...

Objectives: Ancient DNA provides an opportunity to separate the genetic and environmental bases of complex traits by allowing direct estimation of genetic values in ancient individuals. Here, we test whether genetic scores for height in ancient individuals are predictive of their actual height, as inferred from skeletal remains. We estimate the con...

Functional benefits of the morphologies described by Bergmann's and Allen's rules in human males have recently been reported. However, the functional implications of ecogeographical patterning in females remain poorly understood. Here, we report the findings of preliminary work analysing the association between body shape and performance in female...

Objectives Life history theory, a branch of evolutionary theory, predicts the existence of trade‐offs in energetic allocation between competing physiological functions. The core metabolic cost of self‐maintenance, measured by resting metabolic rate (RMR), represents a large component of human daily energy expenditure. Despite strong selective press...

To understand human evolution it is critical to clarify which adaptations enabled our colonisation of novel ecological niches. For any species climate is a fundamental source of environmental stress during range expansion. Mammalian climatic adaptations include changes in size and shape reflected in skeletal dimensions and humans fit general primat...

The end of the Pleistocene in Southwest Asia is widely known for the emergence of socially-complex hunter-gatherers—the Natufians—characterized by a rich material culture record, including elaborate burials. In comparison, human interments that predate the Natufian are rare. The discovery and excavation of a hut structure at the 20,000-year-old Epi...

Modern humans originated between 300 and 200 ka in structured populations throughout Africa, characterized by regional interaction and diversity. Acknowledgment of this complex Pleistocene population structure raises new questions about the emergence of phenotypic diversity. Holocene Southern African Later Stone Age (LSA) skeletons and descendant K...

Maternal malnutrition during gestation and lactation is known to have adverse effects on offspring. We evaluate the impact of maternal diet on offspring bony labyrinth morphology. The bony labyrinth develops early and is thought to be stable to protect vital sensory organs within. For these reasons, bony labyrinth morphology has been used extensive...

Worldwide variation in human stature and limb proportions is widely accepted to reflect thermal adaptation, but the contribution of population history to this variation is unknown. Furthermore, stature and relative lower limb length (LLL) show substantial plastic responses to environmental stressors, e.g., nutrition, pathogen load, which covary wit...

Objectives Variation in trabecular and cortical bone properties is often used to infer habitual behavior in the past. However, the structures of both types of bone are rarely considered together and may even contradict each other in functional interpretations. We examine trabecular and cortical bone properties in various athletes and sedentary cont...

Objectives Variation in human trabecular bone morphology can be linked to habitual behavior, but it is difficult to investigate in vivo due to the radiation required at high resolution. Consequently, functional interpretations of trabecular morphology remain inferential. Here we introduce a method to link low‐ and high‐resolution CT data from dry a...

The Neolithic transition in Europe was driven by the rapid dispersal of Near Eastern farmers who, over a period of 3,500 years, brought food production to the furthest corners of the continent. However, this wave of expansion was far from homogeneous, and climatic factors may have driven a marked slowdown observed at higher latitudes. Here, we test...

Objectives The objective of this study is to demonstrate a new method for analyzing trabecular bone volume fraction and degree of anisotropy in three dimensions. Methods We use a combination of automatic mesh registration, point‐cloud correspondence registration, and P‐value corrected univariate statistical tests to compare bone volume fraction an...

Objectives We sought to determine the relationships between muscle size, function, and polar second moments of area (J) at the midshaft femur, proximal tibia, and midshaft tibia. Materials and Methods We used peripheral quantitative computed tomography to quantify right femoral and tibial J and soft tissue cross‐sectional areas, and force plate me...

Osipov and colleagues [American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 2(151) 2013] previously posited that the dimensions of the bony labyrinth exhibit sexual dimorphism. Using a recent sample of known sex, they produced an age-independent, multivariate equation to predict biological sex using several of these dimensions. We aim to test the applicabili...

Objectives The “obstetrical dilemma” hypothesis assumes that the modern human female pelvis serves two discrete functions: obstetrics and locomotion. We investigate whether these differing functions create observable patterns of morphological covariation and whether those patterns differ by height, weight, and age. This allows evaluation of evidenc...

Analysis of the trabecular bone structure and midshaft cross-sectional geometry of the distal tibia of several groups of athletes and controls. Each loading modality is associated with a unique and predictable combination of trabecular and cortical bone variables. Our functional interpretations of fossil morphology can be improved by considering bo...

Objectives Trabecular structure is frequently used to differentiate between highly divergent mechanical environments. Less is known regarding the response of the structural properties to more subtle behavioral differences, as the range of intrapopulation variation in trabecular architecture is rarely studied. Examining the extent to which lower lim...

Phenotypic plasticity is common among metazoans. We have previously argued that enhanced phenotypic plasticity is a characteristic of the hominin lineage (Wells and Stock, 2007). This hypothesis remains challenging to test as phenotypic correlates of environmental variation may result from either natural selection or plasticity. Recent evidence sug...

Both extinct and extant hominin populations display morphological features consistent with Bergmann's and Allen's Rules. However, the functional implications of the morphologies described by these ecological laws are poorly understood. We examined this through the lens of endurance running. Previous research concerning endurance running has focused...

Trabecular bone structure in adulthood is a product of a process of modelling during ontogeny and remodelling throughout life. Insight into ontogeny is essential to understand the functional significance of trabecular bone structural variation observed in adults. The complex shape and loading of the human calcaneus provides a natural experiment to...

The global distribution of language diversity mirrors that of several variables related to ecosystem productivity. It has been argued that this is driven by the size of social networks, which tend to be larger in harsher climates to ensure food security, leading to reduced language divergence. Is this pattern purely synchronic, or is there also a q...

We challenge the view that our species, Homo sapiens, evolved within a single population and/or region of Africa. Genetic data are consistent with a diverse and subdivided African ancestry, potentially including gene flow with currently unidentified African archaic populations. The chronology and physical diversity of Pleistocene human fossils also...

The article The Transition from Hunting–Gathering to Food Production in the Gamo Highlands of Southern Ethiopia

The human foot is highly derived relative to that of other hominoids and therefore a topic of intense research in paleoanthropology. While trabecular bone is thought to be highly plastic in response to habitual behavior, knowledge of how trabecular structure scale with body size is essential for making functional inferences from trabecular bone mor...

To understand human evolution it is critical to clarify which adaptations enabled our colonisation of novel ecological niches. For any species climate is a fundamental source of environmental stress during range expansion. Mammalian climatic adaptations include changes in size and shape reflected in skeletal dimensions and humans fit general primat...

Living South Asians have low lean tissue mass relative to height, which contributes to their elevated type 2 diabetes susceptibility, particularly when accompanied by obesity. While ongoing lifestyle transitions account for rising obesity, the origins of low lean mass remain unclear. We analysed proxies for lean mass and stature among South Asian s...

Body mass prediction from the skeleton most commonly employs femoral head diameter (FHD). However, theoretical predictions and empirical data suggest the relationship between mass and FHD is strongest in young adults, that bone dimensions reflect lean mass better than body or fat mass and that other femoral measurements may be superior. Here, we ge...

Over three field seasons between 2007 and 2012, we excavated three caves—Mota, Tuwatey, and Gulo—situated at an average elevation of 2,084 m above sea level in the cool and moist Boreda Gamo Highlands of southwestern Ethiopia. Anthropogenic deposits in these caves date from the Middle to Late Holocene (ca. 6000 to 100 BP) and provide excellent pres...

Table S1 Raw unadjusted mean (SD) values for lower limb bone parameters

Objectives To systematically characterize intra‐limb patterns of skeletal plasticity to loading among living women, in order to better understand regional complexity in structural adaptation within the lower limb and more accurately infer behavior in the past. Materials and methods We used peripheral quantitative computed tomography imaging of the...