What are some physical changes humans have experienced in the last 500 to 1000 years? do we have bigger brains

Question

What are some physical changes humans have experienced in the last 500 to 1000 years? do we have bigger brains

Answer 1

Well there are a whole host of physical changes.

1. We are alot taller, primarily on account of good nutrition, those in Europe and more recently in Asia are somewhat taller - in many cases strikingly so, relative to our near ancestors of 500-2000 years ago. A man of 5'8" would be well above average 2000 years ago.

2. We are in some ways much healthier - in so far as alot more of us live to adulthood, afterwards, it's pretty much a dietary disaster but we do not die in nearly the numbers we did due primarily to good maternity care and public healthcare surrounding innoculations etc.

As a result of medicine, it is common for most diseases to be cured or treated rather than cause permanent disability or death- this was common as little as 100 years ago, so dental work, dermatology, cardiovascular treatment, chemotherapy all have extended our individual lives long past when we might have succumb otherwise. .

3. While we are not - probably wired much differently than a peasant or nobleman from 1000 years ago, we are far, far more well educated, literacy is common, and some level of advanced education exists throughout much of the developed and developing world, such that it is not just realistic but required that citizens participate in the political process of government.

4. We have alot more leisure time than preceding generations in our childhoods. Children oftentimes, were expected to work at least part of the day, doing either serious chores, or some form of helping around the family business (usually a farm).

5. We have changed genetically too, becoming in the last 50 years far far more genetically diverse than beforehand, if you grew up in a pre-industrial society, you probably married the girl next door, today, you might meet a girl from 1/2 way across the planet.

Answer 2

No, we don't have bigger brains -- we haven't changd at all sinc much longer than 1000 years.

What has happnd though, is that thre are more people who weren't malnurishd in thir arly years, so less stunting of brain dvelopment.

Answer 3

It takes much longer for complex life forms to mutate and experience noticeable changes.

Neanderthal died out about 35,000 years ago and he was already in Europe when our ancestors arrived. Modern man did have a more advanced cerebral cortex and this alone is probably what caused us to, unintentionally, extinct old Neander.

Answer 4

I've heard that a lot of people don't have an appendix some girls don't have a hymen or they have just a partial one.

The appendix was apparently used to help digest really tough foods or things that got into foods that you weren't necessarily supposed to eat, such as tiny stones, or pieces of bone, etc.  As for the hymen, besides the role it plays culturally, at one point in time, it was used to help protect young women from infection by acting as a barrier.  Because of all the antibiotics and medicines, it doesn't have the same use, leading to it either not being there, or being smaller than it used to, or just partial coverage.

We're also taller.  if you go visit shakespeares' home, you can easily tell that.  And the size of the brain isn't always important, it's the density that makes a difference.  Our brains have probably gotten smaller because of the density thing.  I think if size ratio was a factor, I believe it would be the hummingbird that would be the smartest animal in the world and the elephant the dumbest.  I can't remember if that's what I learned, or if it was some other bird.

Answer 5

We are also losing our wisdom teeth more and more with each generation.  There were also more people with blue eyes at that time.

Also, there wasn't as much mixing of races that long ago.  As we have developed traveling technologies, our planet has gotten smaller.  Different races have intermixed, and do so more and more all of the time.  Thus making identification of ancestry are more difficult by physical appearances.

Answer 6

We don't have bigger brains. 500-1000 years is an evolutionary insignificant time for humans, nothing much will have happened in that time.

Answer 7

we are bigger due to better nutrition. (most recently)

Answer 8

There is little change. None in the brain size at all.

People about 500-1000 years ago were somewhat shorter (though it was certainly not unheard of to be tall--for instance many viking skeletons are 6 footers) due to overcrowding,disease and poor diet, BUT in earlier periods (around about 2000-2400 BC)they were pretty much around the same height as we are today. they would have been leaner and probably more wiry than we are,due to diet,with muscles lying low and flat rather than bulked up muscle-men. A lot of men were archers and thiscontributed to extra development in the upper body.

Answer 9

No, not in any meaningful way.

Yet it can be said that we have better immunity due to multiple exposure to numerous diseases that killed huge populations.

The greater availability of food since the Columbian trade of agricultural species and the British agricultural revolution mean people have grown better fed, taller, bulkier, and slower - these would be the physical changes experienced since the end of the middle ages or since the 1500's.