sculpted by technology's unintended consequences

[sergebroom]

I'm almost done reading the February 26, 2006, issue of Science News. As entertaining as ever, and making me feel guilty that I let almost 2 years of its issues accumulate. Sure, during much of that time, my life had been taken by a few Projects from Hell, but I still feel guilty.

That being said, one item particularly struck me.

A 260,000-year-old partial skeleton excavated in northwestern China 22 years ago represents our largest known female ancestor (...) The Jinniushan specimen's size reflects her membership in a population that, as an adaptation for retaining heat in a cold climate, evolved large, broad bodies with short limbs (...) The new findings reinforce previous fossil analyses suggesting that mid-Stone Age human ancestors evolved cold-adapted bodies at lower latitudes and in warmer climates than modern people did (...) that's because mid-Stone Age folk had less effective ways to protect themselves from the cold than people did after about 60,000 years ago. At that time, campfires gave way to stone-lined hearths...

Sure, we know that our technology affects our evolution. Still, for some reason, this reminder really was awesome to me. That may be because the technology of a hearth isn't very complex and yet it had such an impact.