page_title: Recent human evolution
section_title: Industrial Revolution to present
hierarchical_section_title: Recent human evolution / Holocene (12,000 years ago till present) / Industrial Revolution to present
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Table salt with salt shaker
context_page_description: Recent human evolution refers to evolutionary adaptation, sexual and natural selection, and genetic drift within Homo sapiens populations, since their separation and dispersal in the Middle Paleolithic about 50,000 years ago. Contrary to popular belief, not only are humans still evolving, their evolution since the dawn of agriculture is faster than ever before. It is possible that human culture—itself a selective force—has accelerated human evolution. With a sufficiently large data set and modern research methods, scientists can study the changes in the frequency of an allele occurring in a tiny subset of the population over a single lifetime, the shortest meaningful time scale in evolution. Comparing a given gene with that of other species enables geneticists to determine whether it is rapidly evolving in humans alone. For example, while human DNA is on average 98% identical to chimp DNA, the so-called Human Accelerated Region 1, involved in the development of the brain, is only 85% similar.
context_section_description: Geneticist Steve Jones told the BBC that during the sixteenth century, only a third of English babies survived till the age of 21, compared to 99% in the twenty-first century. Medical advances, especially those made in the twentieth century, made this change possible. Yet while people from the developed world today are living longer and healthier lives, many are choosing to have just a few or no children at all, meaning evolutionary forces continue to act on the human gene pool, just in a different way. While modern medicine appears to shield humanity from the pressures of natural selection, it does not prevent other evolutionary processes from taking place. According to neutral selection theory, natural selection affects only 8% of the human genome, meaning mutations in the remaining parts of the genome can change their frequency by pure chance. If natural selective pressures are reduced, then traits that are normally purged are not removed as quickly, which could increase their frequency and speed up evolution. There is evidence that the rate of human mutation is rising. For humans, the largest source of heritable mutations is sperm; a man accumulates more and more mutations in his sperm as he ages. Hence, men delaying reproduction can affect human evolution. The accumulation of so many mutations in a short period of time could pose genetic problems for future human generations. Dependence on modern medicine itself is another evolutionary time bomb. For a long time, it has reduced the fatality of genetic defects and contagious diseases, allowing more and more humans to survive and reproduce, but it has also enabled maladaptive traits that would otherwise be culled to accumulate in the gene pool. This is not a problem as long as access to modern healthcare is maintained. But natural selective pressures will mount considerably if that is taken away. Nevertheless, dependence on medicine rather than genetic adaptations will likely be the driving force behind humanity's fight against diseases for the foreseeable future. Moreover, while the introduction of antibiotics initially reduced the mortality rates due to infectious diseases by significant amounts, abuse has led to the rise of resistant strains of bacteria, making many illnesses major causes of death once again.
  Human jaws and teeth have been shrinking within the last 30,000 years or so as a result of new diets and technology, so much so that there are many individuals in the current era who do not have enough space in their mouths for their third molars (or wisdom teeth). In the twentieth century, however, this trend appeared to have been slightly reversed due to the introduction of fluoride, which thickens dental enamel, thereby enlarging the teeth.
  In the middle of the eighteenth century, the average height of Dutch soldiers was 165 cm, well below European and American averages. However, 150 years later, the Dutch gained an average of 20 cm while the Americans only 6 cm. This is due to the fact that tall Dutchmen on average had more children than those who were short, as Dutchwomen found them more attractive, and that while tall Dutchwomen on average had fewer children than those of medium heights, they did have more children than those who were short. Things like good nutrition and good healthcare did not play as important a role as biological evolution. By contrast, in some other countries such as the United States, for example, men of average height and short women tended to have more children.
  Recent research suggests that menopause is evolving to occur later. Other reported trends appear to include lengthening of the human reproductive period and reduction in cholesterol levels, blood glucose and blood pressure in some populations.
  Population geneticist Emmanuel Milot and his team studied recent human evolution in an isolated Canadian island using 140 years of church records. They found that selection favored younger age of first birth among women.
  Human evolution continues during the modern era, including among industrialized nations. Things like access to co
caption: Westerners are evolving to have lower blood pressures because their modern diets contain high amounts of salt (NaCl), which raises blood pressure.
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