Human cold adaptation: an unfinished agenda.

1975 marked the end of a 20-year period of human biology research on physical environment. The focus then shifted from climatic adaptation to problems of nutrition, disease, and stress. However, many questions about human environmental patterns, especially in reference to their evolution, were abandoned rather than resolved.

Developmental response to cold stress in cranial morphology of Rattus: implications for the interpretation of climatic adaptation in fossil hominins.

Adaptation to climate occupies a central position in biological anthropology. The demonstrable relationship between temperature and morphology in extant primates (including humans) forms the basis of the interpretation of the Pleistocene hominin Homo neanderthalensis as a cold-adapted species. There are contradictory signals, however, in the pattern of primate craniofacial changes associated with climatic conditions.

Physiological anthropology: past and future.

Environmental studies in adaptive human biology by North American anthropologists have a history of strong investigative research. From both laboratory and field work, we have gained major insights into human response to physical and social challenges. While these results were considered by most professionals to belong within evolutionary biology, in fact the intellectual structure sprang almost entirely from physiological equilibrium models.

Climate, racial category, and body proportions in the U.S.

In 1955, Newman and Munro reported correlations between physical characteristics and climate in a white male U.S. Army sample.

Neandertal cold adaptation: physiological and energetic factors.

European Neandertals employed a complex set of physiological cold defenses, homologous to those seen in contemporary humans and nonhuman primates. While Neandertal morphological patterns, such as foreshortened extremities and low relative surface-area, may have explained some of the variance in cold resistance, it is suggested the adaptive package was strongly dependent on a rich array of physiological defenses. A summary of the environmental cold conditions in which the Neandertals lived is presented, and a comparative ethnographic model from Tierra del Fuego is used.

Field test of self-paced work capacity: Ifugao rice farmers.

This article reports results of a field test of work capacity on 30 male farmers ranging in age from 15-54. It involved a self-paced walk from the valley floor, up the mountain wall, and return, with heart rate monitoring. The route was 2.

China productivity project: General description and analysis of productivity.

The amount of work that people do is a focal point of human life, an outcome with extraordinarily complex roots. The physical task itself, the natural setting, biological work capacity, and behavioral patterns presumably condition productivity. This paper presents a model by which work output of Chinese cycle haulers was investigated, and outlines investigative techniques including work physiology, health assessment, cold response, and ethnography of the workplace and home.

Physical size, school performance, and visual-motor maturity in the Philippines.

The broad theoretical issue approached in this work is whether supposedly adaptive or maladaptive biological variation has any real impact on people's lives and well-being. From a poor barrio of a rural lowland Philippine fishing community, a sample of 25 boys and 25 girls who had completed first grade at 8 years was measured. This population may be considered moderately undernourished by NCHS but not Philippine standards.