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Consider an ancient technological innovation that led to an increase in human brain size . That innovation, according to the archeological record, occurred about 800,000 years ago. It was the discovery of the efficiency of using fire in cooking , especially for meat (sorry vegans). With this discovery, prehistoric homo-sapiens garnered substantially greater nutritional value from their hunting activities. Why? The invention of cooking makes more nutrients available from foodstuffs than from uncooked food. This gave rise to an expansion in the brains prefrontal cortex. This expansion of brain matter allowed the emergence of homo sapiens.
Another result was improved health, and improved brain development especially in early life. See The Economist , May 31, 2014, p.71
After this innovation, the fossil records for homo-sapiens shows —during the middle stone age —a large and sudden increase in brain size, conferring obvious advantage on humans relative to other primates.
Another example of feedback between biology and economics.
In 1840s-1850s, who were the tallest people on earth?
No, the Plains Indians of North America, including such tribes as the Sioux and Shoshone.
We know this from comparing skeletal records across continents.
Why were the Plains Indians so tall? The answer is the reverse of reasons for short stature in very poor nations.
Answer: Good Health and Diet:
Moreover, a study of Northern European economic history in 1700-1850 you would reveal the almost complete in attention to personal hygiene and proper human waste disposal. Men wore wool pants unwashed for weeks. Think about it. There was raw sewage on the streets and in the ditches of London. As a result, diseases were rampant, life expectancy was low, the growth of children was stunted, and brain development was retarded.
Not so with Plains Indians in 1800s. As a nomadic people in a land then largely unsettled and underpopulated, the Plains Indians moved often from place to place, so that they never, as it were, “fouled their own nests.”
Between 1400-1850, vast buffalo herds roamed areas from the Texas Coastal Plain all the way up through Canada.
With plentiful protein, the diet of Plains Indians was conducive to rapid early growth, from infancy to adulthood. These two factors, many believe, account for the relatively great height of these Indians.
Sadly, we have quite recent examples of the effects of economic strategies leading to poor diet, which leads to stunted physical stature.
For example, North Korean youth aged between 18-30 in 2010 were several inches shorter than ethnically identical South Koreans, largely because of malnutrition stemming both from famines and floods as well as disastrous agricultural policy.
Concern for the human condition over time involves requires a focus on “what growth and development” means for:
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