An integrative skeletal and paleogenomic analysis of prehistoric stature variation suggests relatively reduced health for early European farmers

Human culture, biology, and health were shaped dramatically by the onset of agriculture ~12,000 years before present (BP). Subsistence shifts from hunting and gathering to agriculture are hypothesized to have resulted in increased individual fitness and population growth as evidenced by archaeological and population genomic data alongside a simultaneous decline in physiological health as inferred from paleopathological analyses and stature reconstructions of skeletal remains. A key component of the health decline inference is that relatively shorter statures observed for early farmers may (at least partly) reflect higher childhood disease burdens and poorer nutrition. However, while such stresses can indeed result in growth stunting, height is also highly heritable, and substantial inter-individual variation in the height genetic component within a population is typical. Moreover, extensive migration and gene flow were characteristics of multiple agricultural transitions worldwide. Here, we consider both osteological and ancient DNA data from the same prehistoric individuals to comprehensively study the trajectory of human stature variation as a proxy for health across a transition to agriculture. Specifically, we compared "predicted" genetic contributions to height from paleogenomic data and "achieved" adult osteological height estimated from long bone measurements on a per-individual basis for n=160 ancient Europeans from sites spanning the Upper Paleolithic to the Iron Age (~38,000-2,400 BP). We found that individuals from the Neolithic were shorter than expected (given their individual polygenic height scores) by an average of -4.47 cm relative to individuals from the Upper Paleolithic and Mesolithic (P=0.016). The average osteological vs. expected stature then increased relative to the Neolithic over the Copper (+2.67 cm, P=0.052), Bronze (+3.33 cm, P=0.032), and Iron Ages (+3.95 cm, P=0.094). These results were partly attenuated when we accounted for genome-wide genetic ancestry variation in our sample (which we note is partly duplicative with the individual polygenic score information). For example, in this secondary analysis Neolithic individuals were -3.48 cm shorter than expected on average relative to individuals from the Upper Paleolithic and Mesolithic (P=0.056). We also incorporated observations of paleopathological indicators of non-specific stress that can persist from childhood to adulthood in skeletal remains (linear enamel hypoplasia, cribra orbitalia, and porotic hyperostosis) into our model. Overall, our work highlights the potential of integrating disparate datasets to explore proxies of health in prehistory.

“Health in” and “Health of” Social-Ecological Systems: A Practical Framework for the Management of Healthy and Resilient Agricultural and Natural Ecosystems

The past two decades have seen an accumulation of theoretical and empirical evidence for the interlinkages between human health and well-being, biodiversity and ecosystem services, and agriculture. The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the devastating impacts that an emerging pathogen, of animal origin, can have on human societies and economies. A number of scholars have called for the wider adoption of “One Health integrated approaches” to better prevent, and respond to, the threats of emerging zoonotic diseases. However, there are theoretical and practical challenges that have precluded the full development and practical implementation of this approach. Whilst integrated approaches to health are increasingly adopting a social-ecological system framework (SES), the lack of clarity in framing the key concept of resilience in health contexts remains a major barrier to its implementation by scientists and practitioners. We propose an operational framework, based on a transdisciplinary definition of Socio-Ecological System Health (SESH) that explicitly links health and ecosystem management with the resilience of SES, and the adaptive capacity of the actors and agents within SES, to prevent and cope with emerging health and environmental risks. We focus on agricultural transitions that play a critical role in disease emergence and biodiversity conservation, to illustrate the proposed participatory framework to frame and co-design SESH interventions. Finally, we highlight critical changes that are needed from researchers, policy makers and donors, in order to engage communities and other stakeholders involved in the management of their own health and that of the underpinning ecosystems.

Governing Transitions towards Sustainable Agriculture—Taking Stock of an Emerging Field of Research

The need for fundamental changes in the way humans interact with nature is now widely acknowledged in order to achieve sustainable development. Agriculture figures prominently in this quest, being both a major driver and a major threat to global sustainability. Agricultural systems typically have co-evolved with other societal structures—retailers, land management, technology, consumer habits, and environmental and agricultural law—and can therefore well be described as socio-technical regimes in the sense of the sustainability transitions literature. This paper aims to give an overview of the emerging field of governing transitions to sustainability agriculture and the topics and trends covered, focusing on how agricultural transitions are being governed through a variety of actors and at a variety of levels. We conduct a systematic review of 153 articles published before the year 2019. We identify two main perspectives: papers that analyse the status quo in farming practices and reasons for lock-in, and papers that explore potential transition pathways and their governance. Predominantly, papers study (local) niche developments and discuss governance options for upscaling, rather than actual regime change. Seven distinct perspectives emerge from our reading of the selected articles: application of theoretical perspectives from the literature on socio-technical transitions; governance and regulation; knowledge and learning; concrete approaches to reduce the environmental impact of agricultural systems; urbanisation, urban agriculture, and local food networks; the role of agri-food businesses; as well as the role of gender. While a variety of local case studies shows potential for small-scale changes that might be transferable to other regions and higher levels of governance, it generally appears that more integrative, comparative work and perhaps more coherence in conceptual approaches would benefit the currently highly fragmented field.

How Are Landscapes under Agroecological Transition Perceived and Appreciated? A Belgian Case Study

An increasing number of agricultural transition initiatives are taking place, seeking more autonomy and resilience on the farms. This undeniably reshapes the landscape and the delivery of ecosystem services (ES). To date, little research includes the knowledge and perceptions of local communities on rural landscapes in agricultural transition. Yet, farmers shape the landscape and ES delivery, and local inhabitants are directly impacted. The present work aims at assessing the extent to which locals (local inhabitants and farmers) appreciate and view landscapes undergoing agricultural transitions. To do so, questionnaires were submitted to locals enquiring about appreciation and ES perceptions of transitioning landscapes. These landscapes were shown in manipulated photographs simulating an agroecological landscape, a conventional agriculture landscape, and landscapes including each isolated agroecological practice (resulting in six ‘scenarios’). In order to put locals’ perceptions in perspective, the same questionnaire was submitted to ‘ES experts’, and ES perceptions were compared to field-based ES measurements in agroecological and conventional parcels of the same study region. The results show that locals and ES experts appreciate and perceive these scenarios similarly. The agroecological scenario was seen as the most appreciated and the one delivering the most ES, while the conventional one was the least appreciated and seen as the one delivering the least ES. These perceptions of ES delivery partially correspond to the ES field measurements, which showed a similar productivity within agroecological and conventional parcels and more regulating ES in agroecological parcels. We discuss how our results call for the assessment of the multi-performance of agricultural systems in terms of ES rather than focusing on yield only, and how future research addressing agroecological transition should rely on integrated valuations and mixed methods to better embrace the complexity of such transitioning systems.

The fate of socialist agricultural premises: To agricultural ‘brownfields’ and back again?

The variety of post-socialist agricultural transitions in four different rural regions located in South Bohemia (Czech Republic), with respect to the utilisation of the older premises, is subject to analysis in this article. A complete database was constructed, containing the identification of agricultural premises in 1989 and their use in 2004 and 2017. From 1989 to 2004, a number of agricultural brownfields emerged, and many sites had been utilised for non-agricultural purposes. After 2004, the acreage of agricultural brownfields was reduced and new land-use utilisation for housing and, especially other non-agricultural activities, significantly increased. The transition in the utilisation of pre-1989 agricultural premises is strongly influenced by the social and economic contexts in which particular sites are located. Proximity to an upper-level regional centre is of crucial importance for decisions with respect to how (and if) the site will be reused. The peripheral location of the site also affects the level and the selection of options for the ways in which particular pre-1989 agricultural premises are used. In the case studies reported here, the marginality of particular regions is increased by their location in the border regions of outer peripheries, where the probability of the presence of agricultural brownfields and the probability of long-term abandonment of agricultural premises is higher. For the traditional developed countryside, we found a typical low level of the share of long-term agricultural brownfields. After 2004, the re-use of pre-1989 agricultural brownfields for agriculture was ascertained, which is complemented by their use for housing.

Provincializing the Anthropocene

The proposal that we have entered a new geological period, the Anthropocene, has gained currency both inside and outside of scientific circles. It is, therefore, worth understanding where this idea comes from and how the science behind it has developed. This article discusses both the nature of empirical support for the Anthropocene proposal as well as the analytical apparatus supporting and surrounding it. To a surprising extent, the notion of an Anthropocene represents an effort to expand homogenized European historical experiences, frameworks and chronologies onto the rest of the world. This focus has serious consequences, for example in the carbon budgets calculated to accompany early agricultural transitions. Not only that deciding whether or not a new geological period is called for is, at present, unnecessary, but even more that there is something very troubling about earth system science built out so fundamentally from the history and ecology of one small part of the world.

RURAL LIVELIHOODS TRANSITIONS: TOWARDS AN INTEGRATION OF THE SUSTAINABLE LIVELIHOODS APPROACH AND THE MULTI-LEVEL PERSPECTIVE

In rural areas, especially in low and middle-income countries, livelihoods have to diversify to include new on- and off-farm activities. However, sustainable livelihood concepts have so far not sufficiently accommodated transition dynamics. Mostly, rural livelihoods and sustainability transitions are addressed separately in the scientific literature. The aim of this review paper is to explore opportunities to integrate the Sustainable Livelihoods Approach (SLA) and the Multi-Level Perspective (MLP) on transitions. We provide an overview of the SLA and MLP. We then focus on the conceptual linkages between SLA and MLP, in particular regarding livelihood diversification strategies. Our review shows that the conceptual overlaps of the SLA and the MLP allow for a meaningful combination of both approaches to harness their respective strengths. Vulnerabilities from the SLA perspective (e.g. shocks, trends, changes) are considered at the landscape level in MLP. Policies, institutions, processes in SLA are part of ‘regime’ in the MLP heuristic. The livelihood diversification in SLA, e.g. the development of new on- and off-farm activities, can be described as niches in MLP. Some empirical work on agricultural transitions from the MLP perspective has adopted a territorial approach to take into consideration the pluri-activity of farms and the interactions between different subsystems (food, energy and tourism). This resonates well with the idea of livelihood diversification as a strategy in SLA. We conclude that integrating SLA and MLP will help to better understand livelihood diversification processes and we provide a preliminary proposal for a livelihood transition framework.