Category: Anthropology
Mayan Dwarf Liminality
February 23, 2020Short-statured people, dwarfs and people with achondroplasia play a significant role in Maya mythology because it is believed that dwarfs lived together with the gods before humans even existed. This presumed divine proximity and intimacy with the unknown gave small-statured status. They knew something the…
The Aesthetics of Upward Arrow
February 25, 2019Are arrows going up more beautiful than arrows going down? The upward arrow seems deeply embedded within the psyche of modern man. It inspires a positive emotional response while a downward arrow triggers negative feelings. The Simple Growth Obsession Test shows this default response also occurs when…
Japanese Miniatures: Social Kogao Chins
April 21, 2015Savage Scale Models
November 16, 2014Counterfactual History
September 22, 2012If we consider contemporary human size as just one possible outcome of different evolutionary possibilities then perhaps it becomes easier to envision a different, short-sized, future. What if human evolution had developed differently? Counterfactual history tries to answer what-if questions. It explores history by means…
Brodmann’s Area 10
September 10, 2012Tiny House Movement
April 15, 2012Messengers of the Small Truth
March 4, 2012GH Resistance
December 26, 2011Stature is a highly heritable trait controlled by genetic and environmental factors. Pygmies display a remarkable and inspiring resistance to growth hormone (GH). African Pygmies represent a paradigmatic example of non-disease-related idiopathic short stature. Even if large quantities of GH are administered to them, they simply ignore…
The Larons
November 9, 2011Human Hypervariability
November 2, 2011Humans are an extremely hypervariable species. There is a large intraspecial difference between its largest and smallest members. The smallest adult person, Chandra Bahadur Dangi, is less than 55 centimeters tall, while the tallest person that ever lived, Robert Wadlow, reached a height of 272 centimeters. That makes…