Research team shows cultural practices can cause biological evolution
(PhysOrg.com) -- When most people think of evolution, they think of animals growing bigger or smaller over generations due to food types or source, bacteria evolving resistance to drugs, or of humans losing their fur and walking upright; in other words, it’s usually about physical changes coming about as a result of a response to the physical environment. But that may not always be the case, according to a group of historians and anthropologists who have been studying several tribes of people in South America. In their paper, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, they say that cultural practices have led to evolved physical traits for one tribe that has caused them to have a unique appearance compared other tribes in the area.