Descripción del proyecto
Cómo la vida transforma nuestros huesos
Los humanos han evolucionado de cazadores-recolectores nómadas a agricultores y, más recientemente, a habitantes de ciudades. La población urbana mundial ha crecido rápidamente desde los años cincuenta del siglo pasado, de 751 millones a más de 4 000 millones en la actualidad. De hecho, en la actualidad, más de la mitad de la población mundial vive en zonas urbanas. En este contexto, el proyecto TRANSITIONS, financiado con fondos europeos, estudiará y ofrecerá formación avanzada, y desarrollará métodos para interpretar las diferencias esqueléticas en el contexto de cazadores-recolectores, agricultores y habitantes de ciudades. Los hallazgos arrojarán nueva luz sobre cómo los diferentes estilos de vida afectan a la forma del esqueleto. Esto resulta importante para comprender las vidas de los pueblos del pasado y cómo mantener de la mejor forma la salud del esqueleto en nuestro mundo de urbanización rápida.
Objetivo
In the last 10 millennia humans have changed the way we live, moving from mobile hunter-gathering to farming and the urban living we are most familiar with today. Since 2008 more than 50% of the global population live in cities. But what effect has this had on our bodies? Understanding how we have adapted to past transitions is vital to interpreting archaeological remains and to anticipate the physical effects of this ongoing modern transition to a highly technologically dependent urban species. The goal of TRANSITIONS is to develop the research capacities of the European Fellow, in his broad area of interest in human variation and evolution. It will provide advanced training in the context and study of the skeletal consequences of changes in lifestyle and activity through a series of defined objectives for resaerch and training that compare skeletal form and function within and between past populations with different subsistence and lifestyle strategies; hunter gatherers, agriculturalists and urban dwellers. The results will provide new insights into how different lifestyles and their functional consequences affect skeletal form. Multiple factors impact on the skeleton, yet there is a discernible, consistent trend with increasing modernity towards ‘gracilization’. Thus, despite the multifactorial causes, to what extent are skeletal effects similar or different between transitions to agriculture and to urban or other ways of life? The answer will reflect how flexible our responses are to similar and different pressures and the extent to which we can use knowledge of historical transitions to interpret archaeological material and anticipate current and future ones. As well as providing advanced training by applying cutting-edge techniques, The ER will be supervised and trained in broader aspects of academic activity, knowledge transfer and career development, enabling him to position himself as a potential research leader.
Ámbito científico
Programa(s)
Régimen de financiación
MSCA-IF-EF-ST - Standard EFCoordinador
YO10 5DD York North Yorkshire
Reino Unido