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.

Mapping toxin exposure risk due to children's play: a case study.

During the 1920's and 1930's, a Niagara County, New York residential community, Belden Center, developed in tandem with two adjacent toxic waste disposal sites. During the period that they were in use, both sites were classified as public health hazards. Particularly between 1944 and 1979, as toxins were deposited, neighborhood children swam and played throughout the industrial waste sites.

The China Productivity Project: results and conclusions.

Experiments were conducted to determine what factors cause variation in individual work output (economic productivity). Forty-five young male Chinese cycle haulers from Beijing were assessed for physiological work capacity, size and body composition, health, nutritional status, cold resistance, household social environment, and motivation. Experiments were conducted in the laboratory as well as under actual working conditions; ethnographic observations were made in the household and on the job during the Beijing winter of 1992.

An universal model of health and work output: theoretical structure and testing strategy.

The model proposed in this paper presents a broad range of factors to predict individual human work output. The predictors include aerobic capacity, body size, motivation, work pattern, social environment and social network, caloric intake, drug and alcohol use, stress resistance and thermoregulation. Health is a major intervening variable, and its relationship to work output is a special concern of this research.

Work performance of Chinese cycle haulers: controlled field experiments in normal work conditions.

Forty-five male Chinese cycle haulers performed a controlled field experiment under mild winter conditions. The objective was to gain insight into factors that affect work performance. Each man hauled the same 481-kg load around a Beijing street course of 14.

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.

Stature in an early mid-19th century poorhouse population: Highland Park, Rochester, New York.

If the early 19th century United States was a developing country, then it may be expected that the lowest economic stratum would show some biological consequences of poverty. This report examines that question by estimating stature on 90 male and 64 female adult skeletons from an unmarked cemetery dating between 1826 and 1863. The Highland Park burial ground was adjacent to institutions which interned unfortunates of Rochester, Monroe County, in western New York.

Stature variation in the British American Colonies: French and Indian War records, 1755-1763.

Personnel records kept by military units of American colonials during the French and Indian War (1755-1763) are analyzed for relationships between environmental factors and stature. A robust American economy and direct access to high-quality food were apparently critical to tallness of this white American male sample. American-born men were taller at all ages than those who had migrated from Europe.

Skeletal stature compared to archival stature in mid-eighteenth century American: Ft. William Henry.

Fourteen soldiers buried at Ft. William Henry, New York, between 1755 and 1757 are compared for stature to a sample of 2,232 New York Provincial soldiers measured anthropometrically in 1760. The William Henry stature mean of 177.

Human nasal protrusion, latitude, and climate.

Relationships between morphological features of human skeletal nasal protrusion, latitude, and climate were investigated. Craniofacial dimensions and indices determined by Woo and Morant (1934) on a world sample of 55 skeletal populations were used as dependent variables. Sample sizes were as low as 39 in some calculations because either skeletal or geographic data were missing.

Human facial temperatures in natural and laboratory cold.

Asian, European, and American Indian men were subjected to craniofacial cooling to determine relative ranking and temperature curves for various facial skin sites. Moving and still air 0 degrees C to -35 degrees C in both laboratory and subarctic outdoor settings were used. The objective was to examine resistance to facial frostbite.