Comments on: African ‘Pgymy’ Shared Stature Allele

By: Mama Africa

Mama Africa — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 00:56:40 +0000

…”the pygmies of Western Central Africa descended from an ancestral population that survived intact until 2800 years ago…”

great post! thanks very much for sharing!

By: Greg Laden

Greg Laden — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 14:45:18 +0000

Right. Short stature occurs again and again, but also in arid climates like the bushmen/Ju. There have been many adaptive explanations. Many seem plausible, none have been overly convincing.

There are few or no tall forest people.

By: MattK

MattK — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 13:01:22 +0000

I wonder if the lack of adolescent growth spurt was just a random mutation that had no particular selective disadvantage.

I think that the mutation was random (as they tend to be) but there is almost certainly a selective advantage (or was in the past) because very short stature also occurs in other tropical forest peoples (Amazonians and some southeast Asian populations) but not among other groups (as far as I know). If it was just drift then short-statured populations should be randomly distributed among environments and economies.

By: Lilian Nattel

Lilian Nattel — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 11:45:07 +0000

I wonder if the lack of adolescent growth spurt was just a random mutation that had no particular selective disadvantage.