Tag: Body Size

Environmental Stress Hypothesis

November 10, 2022 By arne hendriks Off

The past 2.000.000 years have seen an increase in estimated body size among most Homo species from an average of 50 to 70 kg. Environmental challenges, such as arid conditions and low resource availability or habitat instability and resource fluctuation, faced by hominin species, are often overcome by…

Shrinking is Easy

September 5, 2013 By arne hendriks 1

There’s a basic asymmetry in macro-evolution. On the evolutionary scale shrinking is easy and growing large is difficult. This is probably due to the emergence, during a trend of increasing maximum body size, of a series of anatomical, physiological, environmental, genetic and other constraints that…