The Role Of Dietary Change In Neanderthals

Niche construction theory is defined as, “The building and destroying of niches by organisms and the mutual interactions between organisms and environments.” The overall construction behind this theory is that organisms inherit the ecologies that they are born into. For example, the building of a city changes the overall ecology. Therefore, children that are born into these environments inherit ecological changes that come along with it. Some of these changes include the amount of people they are exposed to and the types of foods that they eat. A prime example of human based niche construction is dietary change, which has changed drastically in the last 40,000 years, a time when Neanderthals roamed the Earth. Directly related to dietary change
Once humans learned how to make smaller, more powerful tools, they were then able to widen their food choices. They were at this point able to hunt not only land creatures, but sea creatures as well. These stronger tools enabled humans to chop up their food, and along with the power to cook their food through the use of fire, the food was overall easier to digest. This was one of the ways in which humans began to use social, as well as behavioral materials, to deal with external
The increase in the use of lactose production has aided in increase of lactose tolerant humans, yet not to the extent that we would think. There is only on average about 30-40% of humans with the lactose tolerant gene, which has taken about 40,000 years to be able to accumulate. These regions are reflected on not only the higher populated areas, but also areas in which there has been a longer time span of human population and growth. Other key elements that are involved with this trend dive into cultural connections, and the use of milk or those animals as a agricultural use. The change is evident in the amount of humans with this allele mutation. It’s a mutation over an expansion of time that is from a source that we not only don’t need, but shouldn’t be using, since it’s from another animal. There are clearly many benefits shown from the drinking of milk and the use of lactose included products, but the majority of the population lacks this mutation, and it’s a question of whether we really need this product to continue to survive, or if it’s just a luxury. The production of milk is highly prevalent, so there is no knowing the influence of the majority to put a halt to these productions based on popular