Abstract:
Anyone who wants to understand the biological nature of humans and their special characteristics must look far back into evolutionary history. Today\'s way of life is drastically different from that of our ancestors. For almost 99% of human history, gathering and hunting have been the basis of nutrition. It was not until about 12,000 years ago that humans began domesticating plants and animals. Bioarchaeologically and biochemically, this can be traced back to our earliest roots. Modern living conditions and the quality of human life are better today than ever before. However, neither physically nor psychosocially have we made this adjustment and we are paying a high health price for it. The studies presented allow us to reconstruct food supply, lifestyles, and dietary habits: from the earliest primates, through hunter-gatherers of the Paleolithic, farming communities since the beginning of the Anthropocene, to the Industrial Age and the present. The comprehensive data pool allows extraction of all findings of medical relevance. Our recent lifestyle and diet are essentially determined by our culture rather than by our millions of years of ancestry. Culture is permanently in a dominant position compared to natural evolution. Thereby culture does not form a contrast to nature but represents its result. There is no doubt that we are biologically adapted to culture, but it is questionable how much culture humans can cope with.
摘要:
任何想要了解人类生物学性质及其特殊特征的人都必须回顾进化史。今天的生活方式与我们的祖先大不相同。几乎99%的人类历史,采集和狩猎一直是营养的基础。直到大约12,000年前,人类才开始驯养植物和动物。生物考古和生物化学,这可以追溯到我们最早的根源。现代生活条件和人类生活质量今天比以往任何时候都好。然而,无论是身体上还是心理上,我们都没有做出这种调整,我们为此付出了高昂的健康代价。提出的研究使我们能够重建食物供应,生活方式,和饮食习惯:从最早的灵长类动物开始,通过旧石器时代的狩猎采集者,自人类世开始以来的农业社区,工业时代和现在。全面的数据池允许提取所有医学相关性的发现。我们最近的生活方式和饮食基本上是由我们的文化决定的,而不是由我们数百万年的祖先决定的。与自然进化相比,文化永远处于主导地位。因此,文化不会与自然形成对比,而是代表其结果。毫无疑问,我们在生物学上适应了文化,但是人类能应付多少文化是值得怀疑的。